Over 6 months, I led the research, concept, design & build of a new homepage design, working closely with engineering, UX, design, and product teams, introducing 3 new products to revolutionize homepage design. We tested a concept in October 2024 that led to a 400% increase in hero clickthrough. The new page work led to a 667% increase in sales on homepage vs previous year on Black Friday.
How it Started:
With the simple idea of exposing all 5 heroes from the carousel, the bento hero was born. This came with some challenges for designers & engineers alike, namely time to production and the rigidity of the structure not allowing designers to respond to marketing needs. We still saw an increase in CTR of 400%, so we knew we had to keep iterating.
Iterations:
A new feature I was working on at the same time allowed users to map an image with as many clickthrough links as they wanted. This was more difficult for users but provided maximum flexibility. We also had concerns from multiple stakeholders on homepage about how to capture data & launch stability. I worked closely with the engineers, product teams, stakeholders & users to mitigate these risks. This gave us a fully customized hero, but one that not everyone was happy with. At the same time as this and image mapping, we were also working on theming to drive interest in the holiday sales. This iteration was a huge success for the 2024 Black Friday Season, accounting for +667% sales YoY.
Next Steps:
While we saw great success in certain areas, definite issues were uncovered in others. We are working on a design that gives the users ability to easily collect data, use their existing systems, have more flexibility in design & secure launch stability. This iteration gave us more options, better clickthrough rate, and fit requirements from multiple stakeholders. Stay tuned to find out where we go next!
Leah McClellan 