As a major high street brand and pioneer in the industry, Ann Summers realised their website deserved to be at the forefront of a crowded online market place.
Ann Summers’ lead the way in the adult market, promoting sexy, fun and innovative products and attitudes, but as the website became increasingly prominent as a sales channel they needed to stand out and increase conversion.
After being approached we pitched against several agencies and were chosen since we displayed creative usability skills to transform their current site into a sexy user experience and fast.
A high street name in a hurry
Our research included store visits and conversations with everyone from floor staff to the MD. We knew that the stores were well designed, allowing for a confident and comfortable shopping experience, and we translated that into an enjoyable online experience.
Ann Summers had a lot of solid material for us to build with. Having both a user experience and design resource throughout the project meant we could fast track elements and save crucial time.
Our agile, workshop approach helped us understand the technical landscape already in place, and since our design team were involved in that process we were able to transfer the results into a design approach that pushed the experience to its technical capabilities.
Quick wins
We rearchitected the homepage, giving focus to the top ranking categories and taking the customer directly to the products they were looking for. We introduced a category landing page, and suggested highlighting products like best sellers, product of the week and service guarantees. We gave the customer a chance to view lots of products across their chosen range, without distracting them from the products they were there to buy.
We applied some essential e-commerce best practice to improve conversion, driving users directly to their product of choice with rationalised search functions, and, without touching the technical architecture at all seamlessly integrating into the IBM WebSphere backend, we changed the Ann Summers’ website to reflect their brand values of sexy, edgy and gorgeous.
