Homepage development.
Updating the homepage of the UK’s #1 retailer.
The Problem
The M&S homepage comprised many different sections and content was owned by the different trading teams resulting in a disjointed presentation and a very long scroll.
The page needed to be redesigned to fulfil the needs of the modern M&S shopper.
The Solution
I worked with the design / trading / analytics teams to explore the current use of the homepage in the context of different visitor journeys.
We found that very few shoppers were taking the time to explore the homepage for inspiration, with a tiny percentage scrolling below the fold, so new designs were developed to encourage easy exploration and more entertaining content.
Over many weeks, I researched the designs until we identified the most effective route.
The Outcome
A retail homepage needs to inspire users to explore and communicate a brand story whilst balancing this with trading requirements – most notably, encouraging users to leave as quickly as possible to the product pages!
The new homepage achieves this by retaining the global header but with a much shorter, simpler, cohesive layout – around 1/3 of the original length.
This refined design also uses space saving modules that allow shortcuts to hero content, and cookies will allow M&S to use targeted content for more personalised inspiration.