project background

Can We Change the Perception Of How Design is Perceived?
- This Was Our Attempt To Do So For Amazon Design
‍(Work was done under discretion of Athletics Agency)

Role

Research + UX
Team of 3

Company

Amazon

Type

Web Exp Redesign

Duration

August 2023

Athletics NYC partnered with Amazon Design to support a series of projects that would ultimately help reshape how design is perceived both internally and externally. I worked in a team of three on the project to revamp Amazon's external facing site: Amazon.design.

Background

Amazon Design is an ecosystem made up of thousands of designers within a variety of different sub-companies, working different design roles, across the world. From an outside perspective, in order to learn about the design team, individuals can visit their external facing site Amazon.design.

However, we would uncover that there are growing pains and challenges that the design team faces when it comes to how they are perceived both internally and externally. A redesign of Amazon.design would be one of many efforts in highlighting and celebrating design at Amazon.

challenges

How can we create a digital experience that improves the internal perception, practice, and standing of the Amazon Design community?

Solution

Service Icon

Re-platform Amazon.design to allow the team to make seamless future updates and track site analytics

Service Icon

Use the site to introduce the new Amazon Design brand to the design world 

Service Icon

Provide visitors with a window into the Amazon Design Community

discovery

"Amazon has tried to revamp Amazon.design a handful of times already.. what will be different this time around?"

Working with Amazon from an agency perspective meant that we had to design for future sustainability and growth. We needed to create a blueprint that would allow the team to continue to grow and maintain the platform. Therefore, it was important for us to consult with the team's go-to content creator and "oversee'er" of the site.

A Thorough UX Audit Would Give Us Some Starting Ground

Our site audit included a content and template inventory which would later help us structure wireframe elements

design microsites celebrate design innovation and culture at a company

By reviewing peer and analogous site experiences we noticed common patterns, areas for opportunity, and inspiration

research

We sought out to find takeaways from three key groups: Design Leadership at Amazon, The Amazon design community, and the external design community

One challenge we faced here was that our client asked to preform 12x interviews per group of interviewees (totaling 36!). With a team of three, this is was a huge ask in terms of resources/time against our project timeline. While we were unable to hit our target, we felt really confident and excited about getting through 22 interviews! 

We affinity mapped the takeaways, some shown below. This helped us coordinate our thoughts and highlight repeating patterns.

“[Amazon.design] has a nice truthfulness to it. Not sure how true it is but it is approachable. Less about the work, more about the people. Ok, now I know who is there, I would like to know a bit about what you've done”  - External Community Member

ideate

After a Jobs to be done workshop, we were able to scale down the v1 pages to be released with Their respective feature capabilities

Having the client come in at this point to participate in a JTBD workshop allowed us to combine both user research and internal client intel on what pages and features should be released on V1 of this project. This was a turning point in the project because this would set the roadmap for future releases.

Popper Blast Image

ideate

A Sitemap allowed us to create a blueprint that reflected the user Perspective when navigating the site

We were excited about how much information we wanted to show, but it was important to not overwhelm the user... instead we wanted to give them a personalized experience and window into design at Amazon.

Design - wireframes

Developing wireframes for this project was different, it was almost as if we were playing a matching game

With the new CRM chosen, we carefully created and matched our wireframe elements to the elements that the CRM could build out. This tested our limitations on what we could create, but I enjoyed the creative challenge of staying true to what we would envision for the site within the constraints.

Takeaways 

Takeaways

Designing for designers felt very meta (and not in the facebook 'meta' way)! 

This project was super interesting and came with its own set of challenges. My target audience has never solely been designers, like myself, so it was super fun to learn the in's and out's of all type of designers. I felt a sense of pride to create something for my fellow designers! 

The research portion of this project was the most vast. Amazon has their own internal UX Researchers, thus, the client wanted us to follow their research guidelines as closely as possible. It posed a challenge since the UX Design team at Athletics is so small, and our timelines with other Amazon projects going on at the time clashed. One solution for this challenge was to introduce group interviewing to hear as many voices as possible. We also reworked project timelines to accommodate extra time needed!

star icon design

Interested in working together? want to talk coffee and plant tips?

Get in touch
CTA Concept Image

Designed with <3 by Klaudia Remiszewska‍

Back To Top Arrow