Company
CHANEL is a French luxury fashion house founded in 1910 by Coco Chanel in Paris. CHANEL specializes in women's ready-to-wear, luxury goods, accessories and licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear. CHANEL is credited for revolutionizing haute couture and ready-to-wear by replacing structured, corseted silhouettes with more functional garments that women still find flattering.
Challenge
CHANEL is a global company with a single site translated into several languages, serving multiple markets and two key personas: fashion and beauty shoppers. The variance in spend amongst the two personas creates a challenge, in addition to the multiple regions served by one website. Secondly, the company houses several divisions that run as mini companies within the overall brand. Satisfying multiple regions, personas, and divisions creates a great need for stakeholder alignment to push designs to the finish line.
Process
Ideas are originated through competitive research from various stakeholders and designers globally. Next, ideas are discussed from a business and divisional perspective. After the business and sub companies weigh in, engineering provides input from a feasibility perspective. Then, the design team evaluates brand alignment and user benefits. Once both alignment and prioritization are achieved, the design cycles begin.
After designs are approved through several iterative cycles, design quality assurance comes next. When the product is ready for testing to live users, designs are released using A/B testing methods. Real-time performance metrics, such as "add to cart" and other engagement markers are collected and the results synthesized. Once there is a positive lift in the tested idea, designs are integrated into the core model of CHANEL's app and website.
Wireframes
Outcome
Several features we developed have increased conversions, improved virtual try-on sessions, and boosted in-boutique appointments. The customer experience is now more streamlined across the app, website, and in-boutique touch points, supported by new services such as "Click and Collect" and enhanced online gifting.
My contributions included improving the design system, supporting the deployment of complex virtual try-on flows, and driving a substantial increase in services booked.
