Omnichannel UX Design
The omnichannel consumer is typically represented by the consumer that searches for information online, but end up purchasing at a physical store or the other way around - they test and look for products offline and end up purchasing online.
Either way, they carry the expectation to have a fluid journey throughout the multiple channels used in the process. And that means more than just an aesthetic cohesion between a company's website and its stores - it means an actual integrated experience and channels connected in a way that the boundaries between them are seemless.
At the time of 2018, this integration was a need for most companies operating on both on and offline enviroments - the so called Digital Transformation became a trend then. And this scenario was particularly sensitive for companies with massive customer service infrastruture and a wide variety of customers.
Designing an omnichannel enviroment for such a complex context of would mean not only a better experience for the user, but, sometimes, millions of dollars that could stop being wasted in redundant interfaces and non optimal processes.
The Omnichannel UX
To understand omnichannel ux, one must take two factor into consideration: ubiquitous computing and pervasive information. Even though these are not terms commonly referred to, what they stand for are already part of our routine.
Ubiquitous computing mean nothing more than having computers everywhere, in every shape and size - that means data being generated and collected everywhere, intentional and unintentionally.
Pervasive information, in turn, refers to a non linear way to distribute and consume information. One could say that, in this context, information does not follow a linear way, but rather a matrix - for example, you could start reading a story in a book and watch the final season of it at the cinema.
When it comes to omnichannel UX, these two factors mean we must consider multiple interfaces to access analogue funciotnalities and, when doing so, we must also enable a journey that flows through the whole set of possible interfaces. In real life, a user or a customer should be able to buy something at a phisycal store or at a website, but also be able to start the process at one point and finish elsewhere.
This level of integration is a challgenge on its own, but the intention of focusing on it on my master degree was to push it to an extreme level of complexity and develop a framework that could respond to it.
Thus, the company chosen as my case study had the followng structure:
-
975 Offices, distributed unevenly throughout brazilian territory
-
27 Call centers
-
17 Websites
First Step first: Understand
To understand how this whole scenario was set, several different methods were used.
Documentation and reports analysis - internal documentation and reports were revised in order to comprehend the company's workflow and review all data related to its customer.
Interview with national manager and coordinator responsible for distributing channels and customer support - it was important to understand how strategy was being designed and what was being set as the company's focus.
Interview with 14 regional managers - the main goal here was to see how every channel was working afterall, despite what was defined by the head office.
Questionary distributed to all employees - considering there were almost five thousand employees, distributing a non mandatory questionary was a way to reach out to everyone interested in contributing with the process.
Digital Interfaces analysis - accessing and navigating all 17 different interfaces available made it possible to identify coherence and differences among them regarding information architechture and visual identity.
In summary, what is important to highlight at this step is the wide variety of methods that might be needed in order to understand how a complex environment is designed and how it works. With this process, that took a couple months, it was possible to identify differences between what was being defined in a concept level and how this was really being employed and, most importantly, what the user was really looking for to do.
The outcome of this step was big amount of data concerning channels functionalities and customer goals. Every service offered in every channel was identified alongside with the user's preferences, behaviour and patterns. The long list was refined to avoid redundancy and make it more understandable. The functionalities were, then, reduced to a quite smaller and simpler list.
Step two: Organize
After collecting all the data possible to understand how the scenario was set, it was time to identify analogies among all the existing funcionalities. At this phase - and with all the knowledge gathered - it was possible to identify patterns and correlate functionalities that were different at first sight, but were performing the same roles.
Thus, funcionalities like "login" at the website and "identifying yourself at the front desk" at the office were all put together in the same "identification" group. This was, obviously, a completely iterative process, since there was no previous template to define how many groups there would be and what functionalities each of them would congregate.
At the end of this step, it all came down to six sets of functions:
Welcoming Area - functionalities related to highlights and advertising.
Customer Care - functionalities related to the process of welcoming customer and understanding his needs.
Identification - functionalities related to the identification process.
Service - functionalities related to service consuming.
Personal Area - functionalities related to profile editing and consuming management.
Rating - functionalities related to rating and recommendation process.
This organization, that was made in a more abstract level, turned the whole process a lot more clear and made possible to stablish some comparsion between interfaces that seemed so different at first, like a website and a phisycal store. In short, they were both performing in a versy simmilar way in terms of functionalities.
Step three: Set a Journey
In sight of customers need and expectations and company's goals previously identified, it is time to arrange all groups of functionalities in a way that you optimize user's experience and preservethe business' objectives.
This step will bring up some definition needs regarding how the company works and what it is willing to deliver for its customers. When in the process of defining a journey with all the sets of functionalities arranged, one must decide whether a user must be identified before consuming any service, for example, or how the rating functionalities relate to the others.
The outcome here is an abstract channel structure. it doesn't have a face yet, but it serves as a template to define the architechture of all the channels. This is the key step to design an experience that is highly cohesive among interfaces so different.
Step four: Customize
After the general definitions were all set, the job here is to simply adjust it to every context. The highlight area, for example, may tak the shape of a horizontal banner at the website's home and it may also be a recorded message played everytime a customer reaches the call center - they both would play the same role in the architechture.
Ultimatelly, in this study case, three different channel's architechture were designed and, although all of them derive from the same model, they each have its own charachteristics. This way, it is possible to have a journey that is coherent even if the user navigates between different interfaces.
Step five: Test and Reset
As a rule for all design method, its final product may never be done and it must be continuously tested in order to provide new information that may restart the whole creative cycle all over again.
Important to highlight that, even though this method was usefull to provide a framework for an omnichannel experience in complex scenarios, it may not be able to answer all this questions involved in it.
When asked to list the three main obstacles for designing an omnichannel experience, employees presented, first of all, the organizational culture, meaning resistance from staff and lack of clear and consistent directions from top leaders.
This work was presented in its full version as a Master Dissertation at the Design course of UnB - Universidade de Brasília - one of Brazil's most recognized universities.
It was also formatted as an article and presented at the 9th International Congress of Information Design - CIDI in October/2019 and can be acessed here.