Caitlyn Burkemper
CASE STUDY
Glideaway
Role
Research
User Experience and Prototyping
Art Direction and Design
Web Development
Client
Glideaway Bed Manufacturing
The Challenge
Founded in 1962, Glideaway is a leading manufacturer of sleep products in the United States. Glideaway rapidly expanded in the mid-'90s and early aughts but was late adopter of direct sales and e-commerce. Glideaway's website had become a hodgepodge of outdated information, lack of online consumer support, and a confusing mix of B2B and B2C information. Moreover, there was not a singular and accurate database for product information and I was the sole researcher, designer, and developer with a strict budget and limited resources.
Research
Interviews with Multiple Departments and Customers
During the research phase of this project, I had the pleasure of interviewing multiple coworkers, department heads, and retailers. Here are some key takeaways:
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Customer service calls were incorrectly directed to several departments because of confusing contact information.
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End consumers could not look up where to buy products. End consumers who called trying to buy products or find their nearest retailer would not receive an answer for up to three business days.
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The online retailer forms could not be filled out digitally, leading to inaccuracies and an increase in process times.
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An estimated 30% of customer service calls could have been self-solved but the solutions were often hard to find.
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Another estimated 20% of customer service calls could have been resolved with more detailed and accurate product pages.
UX Audit
Glideaway's site had many of the functionalities its competition had but features and content were often buried under unintuitive navigation and outdated graphics.
The pages dedicated to end consumer support were especially plagued with issues. Customer support pages were divided into three separate menu items (Support, FAQs, and Resources) with two dropdown menus.
Iteration
Redesigned Product Pages
With tight time constraints, a core focus was designing a product page template that would meet the needs of end consumers, retailers, and Glideaway's staff. Low fidelity wireframes provided enough of a direction to communicate the design to the necessary department heads and still hit crucial deadlines.
New product pages would include: available sizes, warranty information, features, replacement parts, accessories, instructions, boxed and unboxed measurements, weights, care instructions, certifications, and materials.
Retailer Locator
Six months after the site's initial launch, Glideaway's retailer locator was launched with 2,500 retailer locations across the United States. End consumer support calls were greatly reduced and the retailer locator is now one of the most visited pages on the site.
Support Pages
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Outcome
54%
Increase in Page Views
119%
Increase in Traffic to
Self-Solving Documentation
32%
Decrease in Bounce Rate