SAMSUNG: RETAIL MODE APPLICATION FOR POINT-OF-SALES

Designing a new Demonstration mode to improve the mobile phone retail experience

Company: samsung electronics
Date: October 2013/ April 2014
Design Team Size: 5
My Role(s): UX Management, Strategic Direction, Requirements Definition, Art Direction (for visual design)

The Brazil handheld products division at Samsung Electronics was charged with the role of improving the shopper experience at the point of sales. While the guidelines for store layouts are strict and could not be changed, the R&D team saw the opportunity to develop applications within the phones that could attract the customers to the handsets and drive product sell out. We decided to create a new retail mode application that would cater to the specific needs of the local customers, targeting mid-tier handsets (costing around 200-300 US$). The project was developed within the UX Program from the Brazil Contents and Services team, with teams located in São Paulo and Manaus (northern Brazil).
 

process chart

Before the design of the application, the team used three methods to gather insights from the customers and define the functionalities of the application: first, a series of interviews with shoppers and sales representatives were held in order to understand the expectations and challenges of the communication within the retail environment. Following, an expert review of the existing retail mode application running in the Samsung handsets was done, to review the usability of the app, as well as discover the possible features and gaps to be filled in the new version. Then, a journey map of the customerexperience in stores was designed, in order to generate insights and direction for the new application.

Interviews

A series of semi-structured interviews were held in Manaus in both Samsung Experience stores and store-in-store environments. 20 consumers were selected, based on the desire to buy a new handset in the next month. Questions focused on the customers´ expectations in stores, the specific things they were looking for when shopping for a new handset, when and how they were gathering information to drive their purchase. Next, 6 sales representatives were interviews, with questions about what features they thought mattered most to customers, what sort of questions they were most asked to provide answers to, what gasp they saw in communication with customers in the store environment and how to help them in showing the value of the products to the customers.

EXPERT REVIEW

An expert review was conducted to find the possible flaws of the current retail mode solution that might need to be fixed in the new application. Two handsets were selected for this review: the S3 mini, which is a mid-range device, and the Galaxy Note 3, which is a flagship.

Though the project was considering to be applied only for the mid-range devices, it was necessary to include a flagship model as the mid-tier models actually did not feature a full application, only demo videos. A thorough analysis of the retail mode application for the Galaxy note 3 was done, taking in consideration the usability and overall experience of using the retail mode application. The results were documented to provide both guidance for the new app, and sent to the retail marketing team in order to support the decision to make the switch from the current app.

journey map

The time the team spent observing the customers at the point of sales resulted in the design of a journey map, wherein each of the contact points of the customer within the shopping environment have been tracked. The map provides a visual mean of analyzing the interaction of the customers with the products, brand and the sales representatives, as well as the emotional state of shoppers during each part of the process.

This approach helped generate a few more insights for the application, as well as a list of recommendations to be sent to the retail marketing team.

requirements definition

Once with all the information available in hand, it was time to write the requirements for the project. Some of the important findings we had to guide the design were:

1 -  Shoppers had no information about Samsung services, so that was an area of opportunity; we made sure services and local promotions were featured

2 - The users usually close the application in order to use the phone, but it is important that they be able to return to the application to explore more content

3 - Customers are familiar with hardware terms, they know they want the latest processor and OS, however, they cannot really translate what these concepts mean in terms of real world benefit; the application should guide them to understanding the true possibilities of what they can do with their smartphones

4 - To design a tool that could serve as a communication instrument between shoppers and sales representatives.

final design and prototype

Once all the high-level requirements were gathered, the team turned them into user stories, and prioritized them in order to run both design and prototype development in parallel using SCRUM methodology. Each story has been turned into wireframes, then layouts, then approved and passed on to development in the next sprint. The final prototype was finished in April 2014, the solution tested in the Manaus UX laboratory.