Yamaha Watercraft Group: 2021 Product Launch
Project Overview
Problem Statement
Customers arrived at dealerships unaware of what Yamaha boat or WaveRunner best fit their needs and newly-released features and accessories were overlooked.
Goal
Experience the Yamaha lifestyle interactively and drive qualified, informed buyers to dealers.
Research Methodology
To jump-start the project, we initiated an intense discovery phase to thoroughly understand business goals and define success metrics. We also created user personas and customer journey maps to empathize with current state users and uncover friction points as well as areas of opportunity.
Top screen resolutions, traffic analytics, buyer/user demographics, and device overlap were reviewed to help inform a goals and measurement plan. To deliver a meaningful and measurable experience, design decisions had to align with the established objectives.
The Family Man Fred persona revealed interest in a compare feature as well as a “build your own” shopping tool. With this enhancement, users could customize their perfect watercraft and in the same process Yamaha could introduce and up-sell accessories and sports activity packages.Design Process
Due to the fast-approaching product launch deadline, we had to prioritize standing up the site. Keeping business and user goals in mind, quick rounds of ideation led to high-fidelity mockups and prototyping. In a perfect world, qualitative and quantitative user testing should have happened between the prototyping and implementation phases to validate assumptions and inferences.
Ideate
Prototype
Implement
Test
Ideation led to three key focus areas
To deliver the best experience for the defined user personas and their journeys, we narrowed in on optimizing category landing pages, providing a shopping tool to compare models across series, and offering a customizable “build and price” feature.
Immersive and interactive category pages put users in the driver’s seat - easily explore life on the water to find which series and model best fit your lifestyle.
Embracing an e-commerce shopping experience allowed users to easily filter and sort by series, swatch color, technology features, and more. At this stage, users could also compare models across series.
The “build and price” feature allows prospective buyers to send their perfect watercraft and accessories to their closest dealer.
The mobile view prioritized the next step of the buid process by using a persistent/sticky footer.A flexible design system for the future
Our comprehensive and flexible design system accelerates new feature requests and keeps design, engineering, and content teams aligned during handoffs.
“This is one of the biggest projects I’ve ever been a part of, and the process was incredible. Everyone played a huge role in making this happen, and we couldn’t ask for a better team.”
– Andrew Cullen, Sr. Manager of Digital Marketing and Communications, Yamaha Watercraft Group
The Team
Agency: Whereoware
Creative/UX Director: Carla Valdes
Project Management Director: Hannah Pascua
Lead UX/UI Designer: Zach Ulmer
UX/UI Designer: MoonYoung Cortez
Lead Account Manager: Lea Howland
Results
Yamaha WaveRunner Users: 100% increase YOY
Yamaha WaveRunner Top Pages: Build and Price (16,886 users)
YamahaBoats.com
Yamaha Boat Users: 135% increase YOY
Yamaha Boat Top Pages: Build and Price (13,884 users)