Jack Thorpe

Activities & Deliverables
Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

Vode Lighting builds and sells high-design, eco-friendly lighting solutions for home and office directly to design industry professionals - architects, lighting designers and interior designers. With highly modular products, designers build out custom configurations by choosing from several product attributes. Their new website needed to be both a marketing platform as well as a powerful customization tool.

The Solution

The solution was based on building a flexible architecture that allowed Vode to introduce product families while supporting users in customizing solutions. We developed a series of modular filters on product category, detail and search pages that allow users to quickly define their system from a library of over 8,000 pre-configured systems. We also designed the “Spec Builder” - a 16-step wizard that guides users through each step of the customization process. The site also provides print-friendly spec sheets, gallery images and technical descriptions that help professionals in incorporate and sell Vode products in their designs.

Activities & Deliverables
Competitor Research, UX Strategy, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

Mohawk Paper is one of the United State’s leading producers of quality paper operating its mills since the early 1930s. After a steady decline in sales, the company realized that the industry business model had fundamentally and irreversibly changed. Technology - particularly email and online document delivery - had undercut the role of print on quality paper. Mohawk had to rethink its business model.

The Solution

Mohawk’s online presence had to be transformed from its poorly coordinated collection of websites, customer portals and marketing mini-sites into an integrated, forward looking expression of a new vision. We began with a comprehensive review of all online properties and worked with Mohawk management in a series of workshops to identify the right path forward. We were able to build consensus around a unified web presence that served all of Mohawk’s various customer segments - from individual artists to wholesale paper resellers - and positioned Mohawk as a leader in the changing landscape.

Activities & Deliverables
Competitor Research, Vision Workshops, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes, Interaction Design

The Challenge

SneakPeeq is a new generation “social shopping” website and mobile app that integrates with Facebook to allow you to “shop with your friends”. The site features time-limited “sales” of mid to high-end products such as Kate Spade and Hotel Chocolat. The more shoppers viewing products, the cheaper the products get ... which encourages you to get more of your friends shopping. As a start-up, SneakPeeq was looking for both strategic thinking and design expertise to refine its offering.

The Solution

This project began with a series of workshops to truly understand SneakPeeq's goals for the future and define the vision for the new iPad app. The result was to model our approach on “going to the mall with friends” with the related buzz and excitement. We developed a flexible architecture that would scale as SneakPeeq grew. Special attention was given to how we were integrating “friends” into the interface as well as the game mechanics around “peeqing” at products, building a following and earning badges.

Activities & Deliverables
Customer Research, Vision Workshops, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

Room & Board offers mid to high-end furniture made by artisans locally in the United States. They pride themselves on world-class customer service and wanted to build an e-commerce website that provided the same care and attention to detail as their showroom experts, support staff and delivery teams.

The Solution

The first two months included visiting the company’s warehouse and production facilities, sitting with call-center staff, and riding with delivery teams to understand the complete customer experience. Through workshops, we developed a vision of the site that was part e-commerce site, part design assistant and part customization tool. The site design included building fully customizable product pages - fabrics, colors, dimensions - and clearly presenting recommended product combinations. We designed and built a drag-and-drop custom storage wizard that allowed users to design highly complex cabinet systems.

Conversion increased by 17%, time on site by 30% and viewed products per visit tripled.

Activities & Deliverables
Research, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

These guys make a lot of products. From complete home entertainment systems to individual USB connectors to top-selling Playstation titles, Sony offers customers of all stripes anything they could need to support their electronics needs. The challenge is presenting that abundance in a way that ordinary as well as sophisticated customers can understand, embrace and buy.

The Solution

Given the size of the organization, this project relied on a large creative team. Divide and conquer was the rule of the day. Working with two other IAs, we interviewed each of Sony’s product business units to determine how and to whom they sold their products. We then crafted a flexible system - from homepage, to category, to product details - that presented a unified “lifestyle” offering while allowing individual units to tailor their message and layouts. Special attention was given to up-sell/cross-sell strategies to extend Sony’s reach into customers digital lives.

Activities & Deliverables
Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes, Interaction Design

The Challenge

Clorox is in the business of clean. You’ve got a mess, Clorox can take care of it. But all too often our biggest messes happen at just the wrong moment and in the wrong place. We find ourselves at the office, the dinner party, on the first date with a coffee stain soaking into our favorite white shirt. What can be done?!? myStain has the answer.

The Solution

myStain is an iPhone app we designed and built that brings 100 years of Clorox cleaning wisdom to your fingertips just when you need it. The app, presented in a fun and irreverent tone, helps users get advice on stains using materials you can easily find - salt, soda water, artificial sweetener. And, of course, there are recommendations of Clorox products for when you get home.

The myStain app has been released for Android, the US Hispanic market and as an online web version.

Activities & Deliverables
Research, Touchpoint Map, UX Strategy, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes, Information Design

The Challenge

Webroot, a leader in internet security software, found itself in a highly competitive market with a product suite designed by engineers. And it looked that way. In an effort to differentiate their offerings, they committed to building their brand around a new customer experience that embodied the ease, reliability and simplicity we’ve come to expect from the technology in our lives.

The Solution

Working together over two years, we redesigned their core product and customer support process. This began with a comprehensive audit of their existing products that resulted in a user experience strategy that defined Webroot's position in the marketplace. This strategy provided the foundation for our redesign of the security application user interface, the web-based security portal, the enterprise and consumer customer support channels and a social media security service.

Activities & Deliverables
Personas, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes, Interaction Design

The Challenge

Cisco’s primarily sells its SMB products through a network of resellers - from large IT solutions companies to two guys working in their garage. While Cisco provides reseller marketing material, they struggle with the challenge of keeping their partners up-to-date. To help enable their partners to better sell products, Cisco needed an engaging, mobile “sales assistant."

The Solution

This project began with a series of stakeholder interviews focused on understanding golas for both Cisco’s internal business goals and partners in the field. We then developed an app model that allowed partners - both large and small - to introduce the Cisco brand, focus on solving business problems, and dig down into product specs. This allows resellers to use the app to talk to different clients - from management to the IT guy. The app also allows the partner to enter general information about the client’s business and needs and returns a “personalized” solution that can be further customized.

Activities & Deliverables
Customer Research, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

Vinfolio provides online wine sales and collector services. From buying a fine Burgundy to storing wines in climate controlled cellars to managing your collection online, Vinfolio is there to support your obsession. And in the highly commodified world of wine sales, Vinfolio decided early on that it would differentiate itself through excellent customer service and by providing unique online tools to its collectors.

The Solution

The centerpiece of this offering is VinCellar, a web-based application that presents complete information about a user’s wine collection. For any given wine, VinCellar can tell you where it’s from and who made it, when to drink it and its current market value, what people think of it and how the experts score it. We also designed a powerful set of data visualization tools that let the user view their collection by geography, varietal, price and maker. The Label View, a Flash application, lets users view their collection by label which is less useful for serious collectors, but a big hit at dinner parties. Finally, we designed the Marketplace which allows users to offer and buy wine directly from the community.

Activities & Deliverables
Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

liveBooks provides creative professionals with high-quality Flash websites that look great and are easy to maintain. After many years of focusing on photographers, liveBooks saw an opportunity to expand its offering and marketing reach into other disciplines such as architecture, graphic design, interior design and students. They felt it was the right time to update their experience along with their business model.

The Solution

The redesign effort was both a study in the new positioning of the company as well as a tactical redesign of its “site chooser” which allows new customers to explore different template options. Industry-specific landing pages were created to speak directly to professionals in their own voice, product pages were updated to clearly differentiate the template -vs- custom design services and the site chooser was streamlined to move the customer from trial to purchase.

Activities & Deliverables
Research, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

For most of its early days, Logitech was best known for one thing - the mouse. While their product offering continued to grow - keyboards, webcams, gaming peripherals, speakers and security suites - their brand image was still tied to humble beginnings. They were looking to radically improve their website and redefine their position as a leader in computing.

The Solution

This project began with a thorough research phase into Logitech’s many business groups and their unique needs. It turns out that selling gaming gear presented a completely different challenge to selling business security systems. Our solution focused on a navigational system that clearly presented Logitech’s product range, category-level landing pages that acting as user targeted homepages and product pages that clearly communicated product features and benefits to corporate IT departments, gaming diehards and your Aunt Roberta.

Activities & Deliverables
Competitor Research, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

SFJAZZ represents the heart and soul of jazz in San Francisco and the Bay Area. It sponsors two festivals a year with over 100 performances around the city. SFJAZZ realized the need to create an experience that satisfied three main goals: to provide a clean listing of events, to cleanly integrate a fussy third-party commerce engine, and to support the fund raising campaign to build the new SFJAZZ Center.

The Solution

The SFJAZZ project was an exercise in balancing the various and competing needs of the organization’s internal teams. The site needed to help users find and buy tickets for events, learn more about the festivals and artists, explore SFJAZZ’s various educational and outreach programs, and solicit donations and support for the new Center. The site achieves the desired balance through a simple navigation, landing pages that act as mini-home pages for the site's different areas, and a collection of modules - event calendar, membership prompts, program highlights - that present a unified vision of the organization.

Activities & Deliverables
Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes

The Challenge

Gymboree, one of America’s leading brands for children’s clothes, wanted their website to work harder. With the face of online shopping quickly changing, they were looking for an experience that would make their customers’ lives easier. In addition, they were preparing another clothing line, Crazy 8, and hoped to leverage an improved e-commerce experience to launch this new brand.

The Solution

While we overhauled the primary navigation and high-level structure of the site, the heavy lifting happened in the trenches of the product pages and checkout process. We developed a series of flexible product templates that allowed for the broad range of product types available. We developed a “mix and match” concept with which customers could put together outfits. We created a “personalized” shopping experience where customers could specify their child’s age and size and then see only products that met these criteria. And then, there was checkout. Multiple payment types and promo codes per order, multiple shipping addresses per order, multiple recipients, multiple gift wrapping and shipping method options ... Fun!

Activities & Deliverables
Market Research, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes, Information Design

The Challenge

Financial Engines helps people invest their retirement money. They work both as the sole manager of investor accounts and by providing online tools that help people make their own investment decisions. The customer lifecycle - from enrollment to portfolio management to retirement - represents a delicate and trusting relationship. Further, the financial crash of 2008 resulted in tremendous distrust of the financial industry. Financial Engines decided it was time to redefine its customer experience.

The Solution

Above all, the experience needed to be friendly, straight-forward and transparent. The design tenets followed from simple information presentation - how big is my portfolio, how much am I saving, how much will I have when I retire - and an understanding of how those numbers compared with individual goals. We also focused on giving customers control of their experience through interactive graphs and tools that allowed exploration of different retirement scenarios. Over the course of a couple years, we rolled out a new corporate website, an enrollment website and several product specific sites.

Activities & Deliverables
Competitor Research, Requirements, Process Flows, Wireframes, Information Design

The Challenge

Silver Spring Networks, a smart meter and utility services provider, gives utilities and their customers real-time information about energy use, cost and impact. This becomes tricky because energy use data is hard to understand, whether that data is “good” or “bad” is hard to communicate and “what can i do about it” hard to prioritize.

The Solution

To help address these challenges, we redesigned Customer IQ, Silver Spring’s web-based portal, with a fresh perspective. We developed the “Understanding, Meaning, Action” model that which stipulated all information on the portal should be easy to understand, meaningful to the general public and actionable. The resulting design featured a combination of user experience best practices including progressive disclosure of complex information, large, friendly data display, interactive graphs and lots of contextual help. Both a Silver Spring Networks design as well as a white label design for use by utilities were created.