Timeline & Contribution

I was brought on this project for phase 2 and phase 3, where I was responsible for designing from March 2020 to October 2020. My day to day included user research, market research, user flows, wireframes, prototyping, user testing, and annotations. I worked with cross-functional teams to ensure all designs were ready for development.

Role

Product Designer (UX)

Problem Space

Canadian Tire is well known for its in-store direct selling experiences with customers but lacked behind when it came to their online presence. Canadian Tire has the vision to become the #1 retailer in Canada in 2020. The idea is limited by a lack of centralization, creating a fragmented approach to digital, inconsistent cross-banner experience, and outdated technology and processes.

Outcome

The team and I successfully delivered all variations of the product detail pages, a new header/footer, store locator page, store detail page, and checkout page, which can be used across 14+ banners. Our work made it clear that specific barriers to the fulfillment methods to be improved upon. There is a plan to expand and enhance the fulfillment methods for customers making it easier for them to purchase online.

Below are the experiences I delivered:

Product Detail Page (PDP)

The product detail page is where customers learn more details about the product. The layout that was chosen for the PDP was a sticky TOC one-page layout. This was a crucial decision because the format needed to accommodate all the different variations of products and be used for other banners. Accommodating the different types of shoppers that browse online was critical as I learned of Canadian Tire shoppers.

Other Variations

The wide range of products that Canadian Tire sells means that the PDP must adapt based on what product is being viewed. One of the most complex variations of the PDP is auto-related. Specific products like wheels and tires require a customer to enter their vehicle to ensure the correct fitment.

PDP Mobile View

Around 60% of Canadian Tire customers visit using their phones. It was important for us when designing that we always start with mobile-first. The PDP was created with ease of navigation with the sticky TOC and the always accessible action to add a product into their cart. We understood that users needed confidence when making a purchasing decision. With easy navigation, customers can learn all about the product and have confidence in adding it to their cart.

Store Locator

Based on our understanding that product inventory is related to stores, we learned that the ability to find stores nearby and change shopping stores quickly was an action that users were frequently doing because the closest store to that user might not always have the inventory of product they are looking for.

Store Details

Not all Canadian Tire retail store is identical to another. Some stores offer more services than others. The store details were designed so that it was clear to users what services the store offered.

Checkout

The importance of a quick and easy checkout experience allows for a fast conversion. With the flexibility of allowing customers to choose their fulfillment method, we designed the checkout experience to communicate further information around different fulfillment methods.

If the customer was signed in, we added the option to show and use CT loyalty points. This not only helped customers save money but also helped Canadian Tire in obtaining a higher brand loyalty.

The Vision

Canadian Tire has the vision to be the #1 retailer in Canada. To do this, we wanted to deepen the household relationships, simplify customer interactions, and streamline digital operations.

Understanding Shoppers

Though this project did not allow us the flexibility to conduct user research, we had a great resource that educated my team and me on the different types of online shoppers. Since Canadian Tire sells a wide variety of products, we understood that there were many user groups and other behaviors that helps them gain confidence when making a purchasing decision.

Competitive Analysis

We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel when it came to designing the product detail page. To better understand how competitors were doing when facing similar challenges, I took a look at over 20+ similar e-commerce sites to breakdown each feature on the detail page.

Strategy

Since Canadian Tire loves a good data story, when presenting to stakeholders, we prepared the features we were working on in a presentation showcasing data that we have collected, what different competitors are doing, and then recommended our designs based on our findings.