All about
the
customer
Victorinox, well known for making the iconic Swiss Army Knife, has a wide product range that includes luggage, watches, fragrance and more. It has also embraced a new identity as a premium brand and transformed itself into a more customer-centric company. The user experience and design of the company’s e-commerce platform now needed to mirror this evolution.
Challenge
A reboot for the brand
and the user
In late 2021, Victorinox was faced with a pivotal challenge. The website, a vast, complex repository showcasing its wide product range, needed a redesign to bring it up to the demands of today’s digitally savvy audience, while also maintaining its loyal customer base. The key? Shifting from a product-centric to a customer-centric approach.
Project
Designing for the customer
A customer-centric brand is one that, as the term suggests, puts the customer first – from selling a product that meets the customer’s needs to providing good customer service.
But customer-centricity is also achieved through good design, whether it’s a UX /UI design that makes the user’s journey easier, or a brand identity that resonates with the audience. That’s why Victorinox asked us to transform its e-commerce site from a UX and design perspective as part of its shift in focus.
We started our collaboration with an in-depth audit of Victorinox's e-commerce platform. We analysed user behaviour data and evaluated content and imagery to understand its impact on audiences of wide demographics.
The Victorinox team were happy that the insights we presented were aligned with their business goals, so they asked us to go ahead with a discovery project.
The aim of this phase was to fully understand the problem we were trying to solve, the challenges we would face and the technical constraints, and then to explore initial paths and redesign core website pages.
It involved extensive UX research, user interviews, brand perception testing, and usability studies as well as tapping into our own knowledge and UX best practices.
—
Fernando Heller,
Senior UX
Our guiding design principle was inspired
by the Swiss Army knife itself.
Make something
complex
into something
really simple.
A key part of our UX research was a workshop with Victorinox stakeholders. The aim of this was to foster empathy for customers and align business objectives with user needs. We created customer scenarios and empathy maps (a visual tool that helps us understand the behaviour and attitudes of users) to keep the customer firmly front of mind.
Understanding how users navigate a website – and how they would prefer to do it – is crucial. We used techniques such as card sorting and tree testing to help us reimagine the site's information architecture and create a more intuitive user experience.
Our guiding design principle was inspired
by the Swiss Army knife itself.
Make something
complex
into something
really simple.
We tested user reactions to both the existing and the proposed website designs to find out about their preferences and perceptions of the Victorinox brand. These insights then guided our redesign strategy.
Strategy
A shift towards
storytelling
Our strategy involved updating the Victorinox site so that it would serve e content that was more about storytelling than products. This content would be more relatable and engaging and would fit better with their brand positioning.
As well as helping customers find their way and carry out tasks (i.e. buy your products), we know that good design helps brands connect with their customer on an emotional level. Imagery, copy, fonts, colours – everything – helps to express what your brand stands for as well as making your website easier (even a pleasure) to navigate and use.
With this in mind, we introduced a contemporary, user-friendly design and enhanced its mobile functionality. We chose a colour palette and typography that was easy to read on screen and complied with web legibility standards.
Our redesign strategy focused on creating agile, easily navigable pages, optimised for search engine arrivals. This was coupled with clear labelling and an intuitive hierarchy. And all our enhancements were validated through rigorous usability testing.
The next step was to collaborate closely with the developers to ensure our improvements were implemented. We developed a comprehensive design system which included guidelines and a library of components for content creation and site updates, from colours to micro-copy and buttons to page templates. We handed this over to the developers and the global Victorinox team so that any future updates would be consistent.
Results
A new website
open for more
business
The culmination of our project was a product that seamlessly integrated all our UX & UI improvements. The result was a coherent, modern and agile e-commerce website with content and design focused on the user. This new platform promised lower bounce rates, higher conversion rates and an improved brand presence online — all backed by comprehensive user data.
—
Desi Reuben,
Head of UX
at Victorinox
Senior UX Manager & Head of UX, Victorinox
Desi Reuben
‘‘Elespacio's efforts resulted in remarkable improvements in e-commerce conversion rates, revenue, and average engagement time. They demonstrated proactive project management with excellent communication.’’
This project was a journey of transformation for the Victorinox e-commerce website into a customer-centric platform. It not only catered to a wider, more diverse audience but also set a new standard for modern, user-friendly e-commerce experiences. Ultimately, it was a lesson in the importance of customer-focused strategies, thorough research, and data-driven design decisions.
Want a website
designed for happy
customers?
