Problem
The motivation for this project came from user research which showed that users find the process of finding landing page templates on Mailchimp overwhelming and confusing. They're not entirely sure what the differences are between each of the templates and how the differences can be utilized as a catalyst for their marketing needs. From a purely visual perspective, previously templates were listed using a simple thumbnail and grid layout which was a disservice to Mailchimp's well-crafted templates.
Goal
Since significant craft was put into designing the templates offered by Mailchimp, it makes
sense to identify and inform customers why they should pick one template over another.
Therefore, the goal for this project was to craft an experience that not only showcases Mailchimp’s templates,
but also communicates what makes them uniquely useful in order to help people with their selection process.
Not only would this help existing customers, but by surfacing the templates on the Mailchimp's marketing website before a user
registers with Mailchimp, this could ultimately result in being able to convert organic searches directly to
Mailchimp users. This was a significant opportunity since at the time Mailchimp was the third result in a Google
search for "landing pages".
Team & Role
At Mailchimp, I was a member of the Innovation Experiences Team. The team is responsible for prototyping future
vision ideas 0 to 1 and testing with customers to determine whether they are worth prioritizing on a larger scale.
I collaborated with another Product Designer on the Innovation
Experiences team for this project. In addition to this collaboration, we received valuable feedback from other team members and stakeholders which was vital towards making this project a success.
Process
The design process began by defining the customer, goals, antigoals, and potential use cases. User research related to the project was collected and stakeholder interviews were conducted. These stakeholder interviews aided in building partnerships with other departments who would be responsible for building out the concepts we designed on a large scale. To better understand Mailchimp and its position in the market, the existing user flow on Mailchimp was assessed and compared to analogous experiences through feature benchmarking. These early exercises helped define the core user problem and scoped the project into a clear focus. Potential solutions were then explored through a design studio where ten product designers developed a number of different approaches to solving a related prompt. Based on this design studio, a variety of different prototypes were created based on the strongest design directions and were iterated on in between design critique sessions in the subsequent weeks. Finally, user testing was conducted on the final prototype and documented with learnings for future cross-functional teams to learn from.
Results
The intention of this project was to explore the potential of what templates on Mailchimp could look like in an ideal scenario, not necessarily what it will look like. With that said, this project was a success because it served as intended. In the end, the project became a source of inspiration for many concepts that were later introduced on the Mailchimp platform in the months following. For example, shortly following this project Mailchimp introduced landing page templates which utilize many of the ideas that were proposed in this project here.
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