GiftCards.com Homepage Redesign - Driving an 81% Increase in Sales
Company
Giftcards.com
Role
UX Designer
Expertise
UX/UI Design
Year
2023
I created this presentation deck and co-presented this deck to the entire company of Blackhawk Network (around 400 people attended the Zoom brown-bag presentation) During this presentation, we pitched our redesign of giftcards.com.
Company brown-bag presentation deck below:
GiftCards.com's homepage was underperforming, with a cluttered interface and confusing navigation leading to poor user engagement and low conversion rates. Our mission was to redesign the homepage to create an intuitive, user-friendly experience that would significantly boost sales.
The Challenge
Timeline
From explorations, stakeholder reviews, a/b testing, to final designs in 3-6 months.
As the lead UX designer, I spearheaded the homepage redesign, taking charge of user research, low+ high fidelity wireframing, a/b testing, and more. I worked closely with design leadership, developers, and key stakeholders to ensure a smooth and successful project execution.
My Role
Process
This category details the high-level approach taken during the project, including research, planning, design, development, testing, and optimization phases.
I conducted competitive analysis, heuristic evaluations, and focused user research on homepage interactions to identify key opportunities for improvement. Based on these insights, I developed user personas and user journey maps to guide design decisions and ensure the final product met user needs effectively.
Research + Planning
I explored multiple high-fidelity wireframes for the new homepage, redesigning the information architecture and content strategy to ensure a seamless user flow. Throughout the process, I balanced the input and needs of various stakeholders while prioritizing conversion optimization.
Design + Prototyping
I designed a modular layout that allowed for future product expansion and enabled stakeholders from various departments to easily author and manage content, while also co-creating a vision roadmap to expand the product ecosystem and ensure long-term market relevance.
Strategy + Vision Work
Testing + Optimization
Implemented iterative design process based on stakeholder feedback and A/B testing.
Key Challenges
The complex product offering resulted in a cluttered and overwhelming homepage, creating confusion for users.
The homepage design lacked scalability, making it difficult to accommodate future product expansion.
The existing content management system was not flexible, limiting multiple stakeholders from different departments from independently managing and updating content.
Reliance on technical assistance for content updates created inefficiencies and delayed content changes across the site.
Balanced stakeholder requirements with user-centered design principles.
Optimized the website for both desktop and mobile, addressing previous mobile usability issues.
Designing without an established design system.
Design Challenges
Working within tight timelines and technical constraints
Designing for a systems migration to AEM (Adobe Experience Manager)
Some technical constraints that occurred during this AEM migration were:
Plugin/Feature Compatibility: Features or plugins from the outdated platform (e.g., WordPress) were incompatible with the new platform (e.g., AEM), requiring custom development.
Performance Issues: Migrating to a new platform introduced performance bottlenecks. Since it was not optimized for the new environment, we dealt with issues such as slower load times or increased server load.
SEO Disruptions: URL structure changed, resulting in loss of metadata during migration, which negatively impacted SEO rankings and visibility.
Security Gaps: Differences in security protocols between platforms left vulnerabilities during the transition period.
Content Formatting: Variations in content management systems caused layout or formatting issues when we moved the content from one platform to another.
Technical Challenges
Operating under an "agency model" with tight timelines
Bridging knowledge gaps with a product team that was new to product design, ex-payment processing background
There was no communication between design and development teams for co-collaboration.
Organizational Challenges
Solutions
User-Centered Design:
Conducted user research to simplify the complex product offering, redesigning the GiftCards.com homepage with a modular design that focuses on clear calls to action and easy navigation.
This approach not only significantly increased conversion rates but also allowed for future product expansion and enabled multiple stakeholders from various departments to author and manage content seamlessly.
Collaboration & Communication:
Facilitated ongoing communication between stakeholders and development teams across time zones, aligning both user needs and business goals while operating under tight deadlines.
Design System Creation:
Developed reusable design system components, which streamlined the migration to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) and bridged the gap between design and development.
Mobile-First Optimization:
Ensured a responsive design for mobile and desktop users, addressing mobile-friendly issues and leading to a more inclusive and accessible user experience across devices.
Click through this presentation —>
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Results
Homepage
Live Results
sales (2wk period)
control: $734K
redesign: $1.33M
81% increase in sales
Additional ROI from Redesign Efforts
Opportunity: These high-traffic pages receive high numbers of organic search visitors but do not convert well to sales. Opportunity to enhance design to improve conversions from these pages.
Solution: Redesigned pages to improve paths to purchase by adding an upsell product quadrant section above the screen fold and a carousel of products below the check balance component.
Impact: The redesign of the check balance page increased weekly revenue by $2000.00/week and conversion by +.05%. For the activation page, conversion increased by +.04% and AOV by +$14.07.
Check Balance
Live Results
AOV (2wk period)
control: $61
redesign: $193
216% increase in AOV
sales (2wk period)
control:$850
redesign: $3276
285% increase in sales
Activation page
Live Results
sales (2wk period)
control:$370
redesign: $2450
562% increase in sales
Phase two-Under New Design Leadership
Future Design Iteration: Current October 2024