These days, customers can order their F&F clothing online and collect it from their local Tesco store the next day. This service that many customers love is available in over 900 stores, but not everyone knows about it. That’s why Tesco Labs recently teamed up with F&F to find new, creative ways to spread the word.
The latest concept we’ve been experimenting with is the ‘F&F Forecaster’: a new approach to digital signage, where we dynamically display clothing options from F&F based on weather forecasts.
The design process for this product has been really interesting and a testament to the power of starting user testing at a very early stage.
In iteration 1, we ambitiously tried to communicate all of our core messages on one digital display. However, we soon found that the display was looking too busy and unclear as a result. So we settled on splitting the messaging across 3 screens as follows:
Screen 1: Tomorrow’s weather forecast (powered by http://forecast.io/).
Screen 2: F&F clothing recommended for the forecast.
Screen 3: Click & Collect countdown – customers who order before the timer runs out can collect their items from store the next day.
Communicating the messaging across multiple screens made the concept easier to understand. An alternative approach would have been to cut down the number of messages we were communicating. But as we were keen to learn which messages really resonated with customers, we decided to start broad with a view to later focusing in on the most compelling elements.
The findings from customer testing also drove the designs of each of these screens individually. For example, our original intent was to display a fairly comprehensive weather forecast on screen 1. However, our insight showed that this was too much information to digest quickly and that the weather facets that customers really cared about for clothing decisions were ‘temperature’ and ‘% chance of rain’. We therefore simplified the design to make these points more prominent.
In addition to raising awareness, we wanted to give customers an easy way to order the clothing advertised on their mobile and try out the store’s Click & Collect service. We facilitated this by including a URL, QR code, and NFC tag below the screens, so customers can interact in the best way for them. It will be interesting to see the uptake of this shopping journey in an outdoor environment and which interaction method proves most popular.
The ‘F&F Forecaster’ is now live in Hammersmith Tesco Metro (just outside Hammersmith underground) and we’re continuing to gather valuable insights which will shape further iterations of the design. This will help us ensure this product is as engaging and useful as possible to our customers.
We’ll let you know how we get on, but in the meantime if you have any thoughts on this project then we’d love to hear from you…