REPORTS FROM SENIOR IT MANAGERS ON STRATEGIC PROJECTS


BIT REPORT
Reported by Julie Lavallee

Staples Inc., the Framingham, Mass.-based $9 billion retailer of office supplies, furniture, and technology to consumers, has joined the parade of retailers rallying for e-convenience. Their vision is not only to provide lists of current products over the Web, but also to design a site that enables a customer to stroll through e-features with ease.

In October 1999, Staples' IT organization embarked on the Navigator Project to design a scalable framework that would increase the amount of products on Staples.com from 30,000 to 130,000. The firm brought in e-business services firm Sapient Corp., Cambridge, Mass., to help in the effort to deliver the project in eight months.

The strategy was to increase sales and customer repurchase rates on the Staples.com Web site, by dramatically improving ease of use and increasing product selection. All the site's existing pages needed to be rebuilt from scratch based on new design templates.

To achieve this, Staples formed two teams to work concurrently in two areas: design and development. The design team focused on usability, visual design, content, and HTML. The development team concentrated on building Microsoft Active Server Page templates, user profiles, and a frequently asked questions database. The development team saved time by building core Microsoft COM components while concept work was still being done.

Fine-tuning Function

The results were impressive. The visual design was completed in two months and the development phase took four months. The Staples team then went into a usability testing phase in which they observed 350 individuals in physical work environments and redesigned pages based on the findings. The project was delivered on schedule in May, then more usability sessions with key stakeholders followed in order to fine-tune the functional design.

"We needed to shift the cosmetic usability to a deep functional approach rooted in the realities of technology limitations," says Tom House, IS project manager, speaking at the Intermedia Group's Websourcing Conference in Boston in September.

Since May 2000, the site has seen increases of 260% in its page hits per week, 20% in sales per week, and 24% average order increase. A usability survey of over 300 site visitors tested before and after the improvements were made registered substantial improvements in site simplicity, user friendliness, and efficiency.

What lessons did the Staples Web site development team learn? "When we looked at short-term wins we couldn't see the big picture," House says. "Encouraging more visual brainstorming throughout early definition stages and knowing what to keep and what to throw away early in the design," were key to successful completion of the project, he says.