Unification of The Illumina Ecosystem

HOW MIGHT WE STREAMLINE THE UNDERSTANDING OF OUR COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS AND REARCHITECT IT IN A MORE USEFUL WAY?

Type: Multi-Year/Multi-Project Strategy
Client: Illumina
Role: Project Owner & UX Strategy Lead

My Role:

Bring stakeholders and departments together was the secret sauce. We were able to share the success and excitement of a project larger than us. What enabled alignment started with the first 5 projects’ user insights. By leveraging the small wins and user validation, the stakeholders became partners and understood the opportunity for the larger vision of “The “Ribbon” and “Global Nav” projects. As the product owner, I lead this effort and managed the teams required to deliver us from concept to final launch.

Why This Matters:

The company had been growing very fast before I joined which lead to a patchwork of user interactions. There was an opportunity to create a familiar experience enabling our users to get things done and find what they needed on their terms.

The Evolution:

The Mobile Menu was the first project that made it clear we were using internal dialog and not that of our customers. So, the natural next step was to run taxonomy research which defined over 70 terms for both clinical and research scientists. Along with SEO research, this unlocked the ability to create a more intelligent search engine that filtered within their language. That research and data unlocked the clues for future research and projects such as personalized product bundles and the Kit Selector Tool (A scalable smart tool by design that self populated by the product page source of truth to give comparisons and recommendations.)

These first “key projects” were the foundation and clues to uncover the opportunity to rearchitect the navigation through “The Global Navigation” and “The Ribbon” features.

The Research

Bringing Everyone Together

The 32 stakeholders and their teams needed to be “all in”. Below is the large and diverse group I brought together.

The Ecosystem At-A-Glance & Shared Critical User Journey

We are one swim lane in the user’s eyes. This view allowed us to clearly see how we support the user journey, where it overlaps, and acted as a foundation for how we measured our efforts while improving the experience together.

…Next, let’s zoom into the final project of this multi-year journey

“The Ribbon”

A complex project Made up of 8

Many projects and research led up to “The Ribbon Project. Let’s be frank, it was a mess. Each of the 7K pages, 10+ environments needed an intuitive and efficient way to connect. Designing WITH our users led to the frictionless design.

User Navigation

6 of the 8 pieces to simplify and unify…

Breaking it down:

Search

The 7th Piece to “The Ribbon” puzzle…

Users taught us that search was the most important overall. They also told us it needed to work right the first time or they wouldn’t use it again. We built it right and validated the front and center approach by our users so that they may easily find and succeed.

Features:

• Open text box to encourage the use

• Custom query and Google API for a focused and helpful search

• Elegant Interaction timing supporting hover and wayfinding

Global Navigation

The Final Piece - addressing findability, customization, and retail targeting

RESULTS - Measuring UX

Keeping track of our user behavior and trends allows us to validate our design and optimize further

• 10x increase in self-identify feature use

• 81% Improved find-ability with increased user confidence and reduced time to task

• 72% CTR on featurette within the product section

• 210% increase in relevant topics consumed improved the “Stickiness” and user exploration

• Kit Selector usage connected to 65% of online revenue

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