Responsive eCommerce Website / B2B / Hardware

Increasing online orders and reducing support calls

Streamlined complex products using systems thinking, delivering significant cost savings, and reimagined the purchasing experience for engineers with a smart, modern approach that elevated the Mini-Circuits brand.

WHAT’S MINI-CIRCUITS? Mini-Circuits is an innovative eCommerce company that leverages wave technology to design and develop hardware solutions for Fortune 500 companies worldwide, driving a faster, smarter, and more connected future.

2021

DURATION: 3 Months

PLATFORM: Responsive eCommerce Website

ROLE: Sr. UX Designer, Lightmatter

METHODOLOGIES:
- Stakeholder Interviews
- Stakeholder Workshops
- Requirements Gathering
- Lean Canvas Workshop
- Lean Persona Creation
- Cognitive Walkthroughs

PROBLEM:
Mini-Circuits' eCommerce experience was outdated, with an antiquated checkout process and user experience, as well as a cumbersome back-end architecture. Users struggled to find products, often resorting to calling customer service to make a purchase.

SOLUTION:
Lightmatter was tasked with designing a modern eCommerce experience that enables users to easily purchase products and discover intelligent companion offerings, all while elevating the Mini-Circuits brand.

IMPACT:
We applied systems thinking to simplify complex products, and increasing online orders, reducing support calls, resulting in cost savings. And, indirectly impacting the ERP system.

Discovery

We had 2 weeks to understand their business and marketing goals, product vision, and user problems and needs. We knew we couldn’t capture everything in 2 weeks, therefore our discovery and requirements definition continued throughout our process.

INITIAL PLANNING PHASES:

  • Understand Mini-Circuits and their product offerings

  • Identify key client stakeholders and their organizational structure

  • Review the SOW and relevant client-provided documentation

  • Analyze qualitative and quantitative data, including two detailed decks

  • Develop workshops to address key questions and fill any information gaps

USER GOALS:

  • Product discoverability, exploration and comparison

  • Improved checkout

  • Ordering and billing transparency

  • Self-sufficiency

BUSINESS GOALS:

  • Modern platform; UX, UI and Tech Stac

  • Allows users to service themselves; online ordering and order transparency

  • Marketing integrations

The design

After finalizing the website architecture, we developed a modular template strategy for efficiency and reuse, alongside a design system of components and modules. Wireframes were created for desktop and smartphone views, followed by high-fidelity desktop mock-ups to meet the 6-month deadline. Prototypes secured client stakeholder approval.

Although usability testing with end users was proposed, the timeline constraints led us to rely on Mini-Circuits hardware engineers to validate and iterate on the designs.

DELIVERABLES:

  • Meaningful Roadmap with Design Sprints

  • 3 hypothesis

  • 3 primary Metrics: self-sufficiency, efficiency and satisfaction rates

  • Sitemap

  • Prototype

  • Persona Based Content Strategy

  • Filter Logic for 27 Product Lines

  • Scalable Data Analytics Strategy

  • Detailed Design System and Module matrix

  • Wireframes

LEARNINGS:

  • Mini-Circuits serves as the industry’s knowledge hub

  • While organizational structure can't be changed, improvements can be made in areas like ERP, customer support, order transparency, product comparison, and market positioning

  • Enhancing the checkout experience is essential

  • Constant communication and flexibility are crucial; pivot early and often

  • Automating order and billing updates would improve user experience, reducing reliance on support reps

  • Users seek more self-service options, but the website needs to evolve to meet their growing demands

3 HYPOTHESIS:

Self-Sufficiency: Users will be more proactive and self-sufficient with improved product detail pages that help users easily validate and compare products simplifying the complexity of the data, therefore increasing online orders.

Efficiency: Users will save time and money with visibility into order status and management through the implementation of a persona based dashboard.

Satisfaction Rates: User satisfaction rates will increase by generating automatic order communications and documentation throughout the discovering, ordering and billing process.

AREAS OF OPPORTUNITIES

  • Improved Navigation

  • Create Product Search

  • Basic and Advanced Product Filtering

  • Indirect ERP Improvements

  • Product Watchlist

METRICS:

Decrease support calls

Increase online ordering

Improve customer satisfaction rates

Building a system

Modern color palette that defines meaning

Flexible responsive grid system for repeatability and consistency

Design tokens for visual attributes to streamline scalable design

Stylized product shots that enhance the existing brand.

Outcome

Users no longer needed to call customer support to find and order products. They had a modern, simply experience
with improved filter functionality tailored to them and not limited by it’s technology. They were able to explore, save and compare complex products with detailed product pages and an enhanced, yet familiar checkout experience. Therefore, increasing online orders. And, as a direct results minimizing customer support call volume — saving the business time and money.

Caught your eye, didn’t it?!