After a new product announcement there are millions of visits to Apple.com within the first day. The iPhone 6s launched new purchasing options from both Apple and Apple retail carriers resulting in a need to incorporate the financing options into an already lengthy shopping experience. As an Interactive AD I lead a 20 person design team that covered mobile, desktop, and Apple Store App experience redesigns.
When Apple introduced the iPhone Upgrade Program as a purchase option, there was a need to break the original shopping experience into multiple sections. For consumers it was to allow for a single decision to be made at a time, and for Apple it was to allow for a less taxing experience on Apple’s servers.
Allow users to browse the new iPhone they are interested in while filling out the Barclay’s financing loan application before the availability state. This allowed for a short and simple checkout experience when the iPhone becomes available to customers. When filling out the “paperwork” during a “buy” moment, a customer could be bumped weeks out of their new iPhone’s delivery just because of the paperwork that took several minutes to complete.
Working together, AD and UX leads were tasked with reshaping the iPhone purchasing process. I co-led the design team in blue sky thinking initiatives and help influence the tone for the new UX shopping experience. I was involved in all stages of wire framing, quick prototypes, and lots of sketches. Rapid concepting phases from wires to prototype were done to test out new ideas.
The newly defined structure of the iPhone shopping experience allowed for additional tools and systems to be integrated. Programs such as The iPhone Upgrade Program, Apple’s Trade Up Program and systems to check their carrier renewal pre-authorization were also implemented through this seemingly simple redesign. From this launch, it has lead to each of those programs evolving to other Apple product lines.
The iPhone Upgrade program allows customers to upgrade their iPhone each year with a trade-in of their current device. After the first year running as an in-store only program the initiative was to bring the tool online. I served as an Interactive AD lead and led a small design team and partnered with a UX research lead to bring the program online.
Customers that are members of the iPhone Upgrade program needed a way to quickly go through the loan approval process before the availability state of when a new iPhone hits the market. Without a tool in place, members of the iPhone Upgrade Program would be bumped in que for getting the device they wanted in the amount of time a loan approval could take to process.
Allow users to do the loan application submission as well as select their desired new iPhone before the availability state. This allowed for a short and simple checkout experience when the iPhone were available to consumers.
The system to allow the user a quick and seamless experience needed to understand a lot of variables of the customer’s eligibility. As a creative lead on this project I was involved in mapping out the user’s journey as to best design for the complex experience.
The first year allowed for over 13,000 users to successfully use the tool with only 16 customers failing flow completion. This was due to personal credit issues. This program has been running for several years now, and is extending out to other lines of business in the form of Trade-In Programs.
