The Official Fluid Blog

Now that the new season of Project Runway has started, I have to tear myself away from Hulu long enough to tell you about Fluid’s launch of the new Elie Tehari site. This project reminds me a lot of the reality show’s design challenges: create a hot new look on a limited budget and in a short amount of time to fit a perfectly-proportioned model.

In this case, Fluid Agency redesigned ElieTahari.com to create a beautiful, branded, and richly interactive website by layering the Fluid Experience imaging solution over the Demandware SiteGenesis ecommerce platform. We took the visual merchandising tools of Fluid Experience and raised them to a new level, seamlessly integrating them throughout the entire site in a way that complemented and enhanced the ecommerce best practices of Demandware SiteGenesis. Check out the ETC section to see how we used Fluid Experience to blend editorial content with shoppable looks. Fluid Experience isn’t just an accessory thrown on to give a static site some personality, but rather it is the fabric that holds it all together to tell the story of the products and the brand.

One of the coolest things about this project is that it also includes the first mobile site we’ve done since launching an HTML version of Fluid Experience. That means it doesn’t matter what kind of mobile or tablet device customers are using to view the site, it always looks great.

To make all this possible, the Fluid product team built completely new HTML based runtime components and corresponding business-user admin tools to create and maintain a wide variety of branding banners. They also built a Demandware cartridge for Fluid Experience to make future implementations on the platform a breeze.

From a design perspective, the challenge was to create a look and feel to match the modern sophistication of the Elie Tahari brand. Fluid’s role in helping to define the photographic direction was a key component of the design’s success. Our creative director, Mariana Bukvic, was able to be on site for the photo shoots, brief the photographer, co-art direct and guide the post-production. Often, we have to work with clients’ existing photo assets, and the fact that we were able to advise and collaborate with Elie Tahari from the start made a huge difference.

The combination of Fluid Experience, Demandware, and our strong interaction and visual design resulted in a site that was built efficiently but looks and feels completely custom. It’s like getting a perfectly tailored couture outfit without having to pawn your Bentley.

Contributors: Brian Biggs, Mariana Bukvic, Davi Ellis, and Margo Silver.

Hi all,

Fluid got to take the stage at eTail East’s Social Commerce Summit last week. So fun. We share our presentation with you here:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Fluid is excited to see you at eTail East in Boston this upcoming week (Aug 8-11). On the agenda:

- Booth #52: Our product and agency teams will be showcasing how Fluid can have a positive impact on your digital commerce plan. Stop by with hard questions or just to say hello. We’re looking forward to meeting you in person.

- Aug. 8th 2:25pm session: Fluid presents “Social Commerce: 5 Strategies that Work.” I’ve 20 minutes to show you cutting edge industry examples of what is working in social commerce and to put a stake in the ground about what two trends will hit next.

My end goal: Get your minds racing with ideas for your social commerce plan. And arm you with examples (ideally a few you’ve never seen) to make the case for action in this area.

Contact Isaac Newton to set up an in-person meeting. (How can you resist meeting Isaac Newton?) Safe travels!

Cheers,
Amy

Search is a fundamental part of nearly every ecommerce site, yet surprisingly little literature can be found on the topic. Greg Nudelman has helped fill this gap with his new book, Designing Search released earlier this year. In it, Nudelman, founder of the research and design firm DesignCaffeine, gives practical advice and useful insights into how people use search on ecommerce sites, both in and out of the home, backing up his claims with solid research from within labs and observations from the field.

Designing Search opens strong, dolling out clear, actionable insights into search habits of users that are of immediate value to anyone designing search features for a site. Starting from what he describes as “zero” (a search results page with no matches found), Nudelman gives wonderful insight into how to construct search functionality that maximizes the discoverability of products and to help customers find what they are looking for. Nudelman deftly justifies his assertions with examples drawn from his considerable time observing users’ behavior. Nudelman even touches briefly on the topic of social search, though he offers little more on the topic that to proclaim it fertile ground for research.

Bravely, Nudelman attempts to address problems associated with mobile design, largely abandoning his central topic altogether and instead focusing on common problems he has observed in users. Though none of his observations are surprising to those of us who have worked closely with and observed actual users, they do serve as a great primer for anyone new to designing for a mobile platform. Nudelman suggests how best to improve upon the current design patterns, advocating for the adoption of less obtrusive design patterns for mobile experiences. While his solutions are in many ways an improvement over current patterns, designers need to consider if the potential improvement is greater than the costs associated with the adoption of a new design pattern. In some cases, improvements may only be incremental and change may result in disruption and rejection.

In contrast, Nudelman’s take on design for the iPad is spot on. Like his section on mobile, his discussion on designing for tablets is only loosely tied to the topic of search, but unlike mobile, Nudelman is completely on point. He addresses everything from current use cases and ergonomics (largely refuting Kevin Kelly’s vision of the future in which everyone carries a phone and a tablet), to future and innovative uses for the newborn platform. Anyone new to designing for tablets would do well to pick up a copy for that section alone.

Overall, Designing Search is a worthwhile read that occasionally shifts focus from search to include much broader topics and audiences. Nudelman has written Designing Search as much for interaction designers as for project managers and executives, and at times he offers insights into details interesting and familiar to designers, such as explaining eye tracking methods. Even with the occasional digression, Nudelman provides sufficient guidance into designing search and mobile experiences to make Designing Search a worthwhile reference.

This post is co-authored by Art Director, Cat Lee.

We are proud to announce that Wag.com launched as the the 3rd installment to the Quidsi empire of brands. Very much like Diapers and Soap.com, one of our biggest challenges was to strike the balance between a boutique shopping experience with the convenience of a superstore. This positioning is unique to Quidsi and for the 3rd time, gave us a set of parameters to reach further and outdo ourselves in creating a fresh new experience.

Brand Experience

Making a digital brand from scratch is the type of project that we love to tackle. The challenges lie in materializing a brand into a personality where our audience would be able to fall in love with. We first cast a wide net of ideal shopping experiences and through a highly collaborative process, whittled it down to the core of your neighborhood pet store.

With it’s warm and friendly nature, the design shines through giving Wag a truly unique positioning that no other brand in the category can compare. The design values a homespun, whimsical and quirky flair, making it an ideal destination for our modern pet lovers. This is a place where we know how important your pet is to your family.

Close attention to detail was key in making the ordinary interactive elements bring forth the personality of Wag. The scalloped awning housing the global navigation was the perfect metaphor for the mom, pop, and pet storefront. To ensure the brand message carried through to the finest of details, we developed meticulous visual systems for the many working pieces of the site:

• Category color coding
• Typographic styling
• Banner treatments
• Photography selection

Last but not least, where would a brand be without it’s logo? The mark of Wag features a prominent logo type with a clever flicker of a happy tail. We custom designed the logo to not only stand alone as an individual entity but to represent the Quidsi family of brands.

Challenges & Innovations

One of the main challenges for the team was re-imagining the organization and hierarchy for a typical shopping site. Instead of designing an all inclusive navigational system for a single pet store, the Quidsi team pushed Fluid to think of Wag.com as six boutique pet stores within one super-store. In addition, we were challenged to support the shopping errand of a typical customer that owns a single pet.

This paradigm shift inspired Fluid to develop a two tiered organizational and navigational system. The top level navigation supports switching between ‘Pet Worlds’ while within a pet section an additional navigational system supports the shopping catalog for the selected fury friend.

In addition, the team had to rethink about the structure of a typical ecommerce home page experience. Instead of showcasing products and categories that speak to the entire super store, the team designed the home page to serve two main purposes:

• Provide customers with an immediate understanding of Wag’s value proposition of free shipping, excellent award winning customer service and a breadth of product offerings within multiple pet categories.
• Act as a spring board that allows customers to quickly and easily dive into a specific ‘Pet world’.

To support this pet focused shopping experience an in-context search menu was developed allowing customer’s to quickly and efficiently find products that are relevant to the pet category they are currently browsing. For example, while shopping in the Dog specific section of the site, the drop down menu within the search box is set to ‘Dog’ by default. A search for ‘bowl’ returns all bowl products that are specific for dogs. If the search results are too narrow for a customer, they can easily and quickly expand the search criteria by either selecting a different animal or all of Wag.com.

Finally, for those who want to spoil their loved ones or find that special gift; Fluid elegantly created a unique curated section called the ‘Pampered Pet Boutique’. This area of the site promotes specialized products in sets displayed in a beautiful editorial grid. Customers can easily browse the collections and purchase from a simple to use quick shop. And if these items don’t pique the customer’s interests, the full list of boutique items is at their disposal.

In short, this was another great opportunity to collaborate with our partners at Quidsi to push the envelope in terms of brand and user experience. A great challenge with great results.