B2B Campaign Dashboard
This dashboard would display relevant Google Nest x Lowe's collaboration campaign data for a variety of executives and employees across the nation for the purpose of monitoring many layers of performance.
Google Nest and Lowe's are coming together to promote Nest's core line of smart home products. Our UX team designed a business-facing dashboard to monitor campaign performance and an AR smart home product showcase experience.
UI/UX Designer
Collaboratively strategized the dashboard user experience, concepted and strategized the product showcase experience, and designed the user interfaces
This dashboard would display relevant Google Nest x Lowe's collaboration campaign data for a variety of executives and employees across the nation for the purpose of monitoring many layers of performance.
This product showcase experience would creatively display the Google Nest product line within 500 ft² spec houses built at Lowe's Home Improvement stores across America.
B2B and B2C user research, Nest product, and product showcase experience research
User stories, user flow, wireframes, permissions, and user testing
Layout changes and dashboard UI design
Showcase experience concepting, user flow, and wireframes
Product showcase experience UI design
Understanding B2B User Needs
Our team talked with executives and looked into key business insights online to determine what information must be presented on the campaign dashboard, keeping the in-store spec house concept in mind. We decided to focus on various geographic levels of visitor traffic, spec house customer path conversion, product conversion, sales, time with each product display, completed web app interactions, product pairing performance, and online product ratings.
Google Nest Product Lineup
The Google Nest product line being showcased and measured for this campaign includes the doorbells, cameras, locks, thermostats, hubs, smoke detector, and alarm system.
Product Display Experiences
Our team looked into creative product showcase experience concepts that would leave an impression on customers, be on brand for Google Nest, and collect sufficient campaign performance data.
The B2B Challenge
Never having designed software before, our team faced some struggles with strategizing an effective B2B dashboard user experience. We overcame these struggles by continuing research, remaining user-focused through user stories and user testing wireframes. Ultimately, we defined a multi-screen business-metric focused software design that would provide multiple stakeholders with campaign information relevant to their unique roles.
Our team drafted user stories in order to get acquainted with our B2B and B2C users. Collectively, we considered the needs, circumstances, and feelings of 10+ possible business and consumer campaign personas.
Our team sketched a dashboard user flow that displays campaign performance data relevant to local Lowe's employees, corporate marketing teams, C-suite stakeholders, and user experience teams. With this concept, there are six customizable dashboards that focus on performance metrics important to each user type and permissions level. Users can glance over top-level metrics on the dashboard and dive deeper into product and spec house performance at many geographic levels. This enables C-suite users to only see information as needed, marketing and UX teams to track and improve campaign design, and local or regional employees to ensure this campaign is profitable for their stores.
Since our approach included user roles and permissions for viewing campaign data, we designed three charts that would support the developer by clearly stating what information would be visible to team members, team leaders, and organization administrators.
Our team collectively designed wireframes in order to lay out all content and make sure our user flow would actually work. There were several rounds of revisions to the wireframes which ensured all needed software elements and campaign metrics were accounted for.
User testing low-fidelity wireframes helped our team to check our ideas, layouts, and overall user experience before getting too far with the design. One insight from this study was that our settings, financial, and product screens hid too much information from the user. Further, users felt information density could be greater. Additionally, product photos were not considered useful.
My UI approach applied simple Google brand elements that do not distract from important content. The left sidebar allows the user to toggle between screens that display data on spec house performance, customers, and campaign financials. Additional data filters are available in the top right so the user can customize information to their needs. Filters are initially set based on user role in order to provide the most relevant information quickly.
Changing the Approach
After learning about effective software design throughout the defining process, I decided to make layout changes for my final UI. Combining the spec house and product performance screens eliminated redundancy and changed how scrolling was implemented to prevent the user from getting stuck at the bottom of a page. These elements feel less confusing and help the user find information more naturally.
The B2C Challenge
The customer-facing side of this project was the Google Nest spec house product showcase experience. Lowe's locations across the country would creatively display the smart home products through some kind of immersive experience. It was our goal to use our research to design an experience that would convert customers, build Google Nest brand recognition, and collect adequate data.
My showcase concept combined Google Glass AR with the original spec house concept for a unique and on-brand customer experience. Lowe's would build small, modern homes within their stores where customers could use Google Glass to see products in a home environment, tailor their focus, understand features through AR projections, and purchase products with ease.
Customers start their experience by scanning a QR code which sends them to the Google Nest app. They pair Google Glass with their device and begin customizing their experience through a quick Q&A session with Google Assistant. The Nest app will use their verbal responses to make recommendations which they can use as a guide through the spec house. Customers can explore the house with Google Glass and the Nest app, interact with product features, test-run the Nest app by product, and add products to their in-app cart. When they're done, users can generate a barcode to use at the Lowe's check-out counter or save their cart for later via email.
Wireframing the mobile app portion of the product showcase experience helped me work through what content would be most important for the user at any moment of the user flow as they use Google Glass to navigate the spec house.
This Nest app extension works seamlessly with Google Glass to create an unforgettable branded AR experience for customers. However, not every customer will want to try out the full Google Glass product showcase, so this app can also work independently as users walk through the spec house and simply use their mobile device to learn more and add products to their in-app cart.
The app works with Google Glass to provide details relevant to the user's off-screen experience. Once the user walks up to a product and selects it via Google Glass or the app, a features list expands on their device. Users can scroll through feature details by swiping on Google Glass or selecting features on their screen. Users can also test out the product-specific Nest app capabilities in real time.
The Google Glass app for this campaign includes the interactive AR product feature projections and cards which direct the user through the spec house experience.
The business-facing dashboard presents up-to-date Google Nest x Lowe's campaign data business leaders and teams actually care about based on their permissions, role, and geographic location.
The Google Glass AR spec house and Nest app experience draws customers in, gives them information when they actually want it, and reports customer data to be displayed on the dashboard.
This was my first experience designing software and a multi-faceted project of this caliber. One of the key takeaways was the difference between websites and software in information density and layout due to how the user interacts with each design. Additionally, it was very clear throughout this process how important topic and user research are for designing a useful software experience. Further, user testing is crucial to developing real empathy for users. Finally, I learned that leaders can't expect team members to suddenly grow to their level. Having this expectation is unrealistic and very frustrating. Instead, leaders must be aware of their team members' individual strengths, weaknesses, and needs and be willing to do anything to see them take their next step as people, professionals, and designers.
