Pattern

Terra
Outdoor

Best Navigation/Structure / Webby Winner
Pattern

Best Navigation/Structure

"The emphasis on work like ours — building brand and business narratives through a results-driven channel like eCommerce — has never been greater. And the appetite for clients wanting to leverage experience design as a crucial brand and business differentiator has never been stronger." Pattern Team
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Q: Can you describe your project and the concept behind it? A: Our goal with Terra Outdoors was to help take their eCommerce site and brand presentation to a new level of clarity and impact through an experience that wove elevated design together with stories about material choices, occasion, functionality, durability, quality craftsmanship and investment in a more fulfilling lifestyle.
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Q: Tell us about your initial moodboard, wireframe, or prototype. How did things change throughout the process? A: Early on we explored multiple expressions for the Terra brand via UX design, content flows and visual explorations — we leaned into luxury, fashion, modern editorial design and expressive motion. Wireframes were crafted to provide structure, a systematic backbone and to quickly iterate on design hierarchy, user flows and features. Visual design played up the elevated brand language with the result being a perfect balance of utility and luxury.
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Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods? A: Terra needed more control and flexibility in how they ran the day-to-day online business and over the curated, guided and elevated experience they wanted to deliver online to customers (who often make multiple trips to the store and site before committing to a purchase). Our deep expertise in pushing the boundaries of both design and code with Shopify made it the obvious choice for a replatform and redesign.

When did you experience a breakthrough or an "a-ha" moment during this project?

We had a few. One of the first was the idea that we could create navigation paths that go beyond product categories and into things like shopping by material or style. Another was the notion that the site sometimes isn't just a sales tool — it’s also a guidance and research tool sitting within a user journey that can span weeks of in-store visits, online research, mood boarding, space planning and cart comparing.

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Q: What web technologies, tools, and resources did you use to develop this? A: With our tech partners at Presidio, we crafted the experience as a custom theme within Shopify utilizing a core suite of technology that includes Shopify Plus, GraphQL, React & Node, Github Actions, Lighthouse CI. All of the UX and visual design was executed within Figma and motion prototypes were built out in Principle.
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Q: How did you balance your own creative ideas and technical capabilities with a fair representation of the client’s brand? A: Given that most of our work is in the eCommerce space, our team has become really adept at pushing creative UX and visual ideas early on in the process. We then methodically revise them until they hit a point of balance between expressive and memorable interactions on the customer experience side, while being structured and systematic and scalable on the backend. Finding the right balance is a core component of our overall design process.
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Q: How did the final product meet or exceed your expectations? A: The client saw double digit increases in average order value and transactions while also approaching triple digit increases in digital sales year-over-year. Beyond that, Terra now has a digital home and flagship brand experience that serves as the backbone of their regional and national expansion strategy. We're currently planning new projects and a phase 2 with them for 2023.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this? A: People demand more, and have shorter attention spans. Marketing investments are tracked to the penny. This means the emphasis on work like ours — building brand and business narratives through a results-driven channel like eCommerce — has never been greater. And the appetite for clients wanting to leverage experience design as a crucial brand and business differentiator has never been stronger.