Design: Sun Store
Summary: ATG submitted a visual and user-interface redesign for Sun Microsystems' online computer store, improving the aesthetic quality and user experience for browsing, configuring and purchasing from thousands of hardware and software products. This conceptual design also included personalization elements, presenting customers with products, prices, and special functionality based on their individual profile.
Problem context: Art Technology Group was contracted to redesign the visuals and user-experience for Sun Microsystems' online store. As the manufacturer of the world's premiere enterprise computing hardware and the developer of the Java programming language, Sun had thousands of products available through its Web store, but bland visuals and a confusing user experience caused the site to underperform. Sun looked to ATG to significantly upgrade the branding and user experience of the site, as well as to design a site that would take advantage of Dynamo's personalization capabilities to further boost sales.
Project objectives: ATG set out to design an online retail presence for Sun Microsystems which would:
- Improve the overall aesthetic quality of the site, while working within Sun's established purple navigation scheme
- Make the process of customizing complex hardware smooth and satisfying
- Improve the layout of and navigational process for the Product Catalog
- Display a range of complex information in the user's shopping cart without sacrificing aesthetic quality
- Allow for active online marketing initiatives through the Showroom section.
- Allow purchase agents familiar with Sun's catalog to order quickly using part numbers.
Target audience: All levels of Sun purchasers but focusing on small-business customers.
My role: Led the creative team which identified and specified business and user requirements; led development of all functionality, UI design and visual design; authored feature specification quantifying functionality; managed creation of all media and HTML for final client implementation; led two rounds of formal user testing on developing interface.
Homepage
The Sun Store is vast, so a premium was placed on simple graphics which offered clear directions to the user. On the Homepage, the user is given basic information about the Sun Store and access to product-related links.
Main Catalog Display
Sun's product catalog is also vast. ATG designed a top-level catalog display which split Sun's offerings into three easy-to-understand sections, with specific links under each section for faster linking.
Catalog Family Level Display
The templated display for family levels in the product catalog hierarchy. Note the links which allow the user to drill back up in the catalog hierarchy, as well as the large display of the current level name, along with large links which allow a user to link one level down, and sublinks which allow the user to link two levels down.
Catalog Multiple Part Number Display
In the Sun catalog, there may be several different types of a single product. In this example, there is a short description of the product, followed by display of several unique part numbers of that product. For each part number, there is a link to learn more, as well as easily understood price and add-to-cart display.
Catalog Product Display (w/ art)
For each individual item, Sun has voluminous product information. ATG designed a display that would present the user with crucial product info plus price, quantity, and the add-to-cart button, in a prominent location. This would enable users to quickly scan information and make a decision, or continue to read the more detailed product specs below.
Catalog Product Display (no art)
This no-art option was designed because Sun hadn't yet shot art of all their products.
Catalog Software Display
The product page for software emphasized the ability to configure the characteristics of the software.
Workstation Customizer
Sun needed an easy-as-pie process for configuring workstations and servers. ATG designed a display that would present the user with basic specifications of a system, and a 1-2-3 progression of pull-down menus to customize. Editorially determined "Help" links would give users more information on certain choices.
Shopping Cart
Sun needed a complex shopping cart that would display product name and part number, list price, discount price (for certain users), a configurable quantity field, and a total price. ATG designed a ground-breaking shopping cart which accommodated all this information in an attractive, easy-to-understand format.
Orders & Quotes Menu
A menu page. ATG designed a clear display for links to crucial functionality and afforded Sun Marketing a space to display special product.
Quote Display
Sun needed a way for users to save a shopping cart as a guaranteed quote. After clicking "Save as Quote" on the shopping cart page, users see a similar page with quote-specific information.
Billing Info Display
A straightforward enter-billing-info page, designed to be minimally distracting.
Express Order Display
Sun needed a way for customers' purchase agents, who tend to know the part numbers of Sun products they purchase by heart, to quickly enter those part numbers and generate a shopping cart. ATG designed an Express Order page to enable purchase agents to do just that.