noon's mega deals

Overview

Noon, a Middle Eastern e-commerce marketplace, had a module on their website called “mega deals”. The purpose of the module was to show customers the very best deals of the day in a more evident way and boost sales of some the product categories.

The module’s attention from customers was quite good, however, its popularity started to fade with time and sales numbers began to drop.

So, I was tasked with finding a way to reverse this trend and bring back the Mega Deals to prominence.

The Process

User research

I started the project by analysing the trends since the module was introduced in 2018 until the time I was tasked with revamping its design.

Due to company policies, I am not able to share real data from my research, but these key points were true:

• The module was popular during the first few weeks after its introduction.

• Customers liked to see new designs on the website/app as it made them feel new products and deals were on offer.

• CTR was low and inconsistent within the module, even when ‘hot products’ were on offer and customers largely ignored it as they thought it wasn’t anything special.

The latter point became the centre of my research as we had noticed that trend from previous campaigns, in which we designed a complete homepage takeover [link to 12/12] with a complete identity. This design would indicate to users that something new is happening and would be more likely to check out products and make a purchase.

Design research

At noon, we didn’t have an established design language that went beyond the layout and interactions of the website/app. We worked with a set of brief guidelines, which gave us the creative freedom to come up with new designs with each iteration.

So as part of our design process, we always conducted design research to understand the market, competitors and what new trends could help us come up with appealing artworks that would attract more customers to the module.

At this stage, I created a mood-board with the findings from my research, which at a top level, explained the art direction I was proposing for the module and how it would fit within UI/UX standards. This was then presented to our Creative Director, which would approve the design or give her input on how it can be improved.

Image credit to justinmind.com. Moodboard example of how the idea is presented to creative director for approval.

Problem Definition

I started my research with the goal of finding a way to increase engagement with the module. I found that the low engagement happened because customers saw the model as “just another part of the website” and didn’t realise the exciting offers it was offering to them. Customers needed a way to be made aware of those offers as soon as they landed on the homepage.

So it became evident that to increase engagement with the module, we’d have to either:

• Add products that appealed to our customers. However, this was out of the hands of the design department.

• Introduce a more impactful design that would catch customer’s attention, making the module more obvious and stand out from the rest of the website.

What’s possible?

Backgrounds

We’d recently introduced backgrounds that worked seamlessly on the app, mobile and desktop site.

To create a sense of excitement and fun, I designed a GIF title that moves up and down mimicking a 3D object. Simple GIFs are not only easy to animate, but make the final artwork look clean and tidy, conveying the message more efficiently. This is a sequence of 4 frames that grow in depth one decimal of a second at a time, then reverse back to nothing, and start again.

Clean lines and flat, energetic colors make the identity of this module stand out from the rest of the page. At the end of the day, we want our customers to not miss these deals, which lasts only one day. On that premise, I added an element of urgency on the title as well that also tells you that a new mega deal will come tomorrow, the day after, etc. The underscore after the 24hrs subtitle reinforces this and offers the viewer a sense of continuation. It tells you that this is not over and even if you miss it today, we'll come back tomorrow with an even better deal.

We built on this colorful, flashy design to create social media post that would reflect the urgency of our mega deals and give a sneak peak to what they can expect when they go to the site to shop the fresh deals. Speed, color, importance are reflected on this instastory created from scratch on After Effects specifically for this campaign.

The final redesign, with all its pieces put together, achieves a fun, yet effective module that increased the click-through rate by a whooping 116% in the first week of being live. An achievement that speaks of how well-thought design, coupled with insights gathered from customers and our tech capabilities can attract more people to a business, and grow as a result.

Do you need a graphic designer? Get in touch today to see how my data-driven design expertise can solve your problem and grow your business as a result.