Alimento for BirdsEye

Introduction

Alimento was a recently launched brand collaboration from Birds Eye and Abbott Nutrition, with the goal of providing specialist food and drink products to the 7% of the UK population that suffer from swallowing difficulties. This condition is known as dysphagia, and requires those that suffer from the disease to consume very soft foods and thick,  pureed drinks.

We were approached by the partnership to activate the brand, deliver a direct to consumer ecommerce website and operate a CRM solution within a proof of concept trial. The proof of concept trial would ultimately see three significant site releases, extensive brand strategy growth and the activation of multiple new audiences. 

Our client provided us with market research identifying top level user needs of a core audience, and the expected role of Alimento within the industry. We were also armed with a service blueprint identifying key interactions with users (both on and offline) and the advice of "fail fast, learn fast"... Our new Alimento contacts had approached us as a result of word of mouth recommendations from mutual contacts at Reckitt (Durex, Veet, Finish), a long term FMCG client we had worked with, so this was a very fast moving, yet informal working relationship.

Team

In addition to the Alimento stakeholders above, I was working with a project team I had worked with on a number of D2C projects; our shared experiences from previous projects had optimised our ways of working and were a great help here.

I led the UX and Design functions of this project as the UX Lead, managing a UX Junior Designer and two Digital Designers. We worked closely and transparently with the agency's Ecommerce and Marketing teams, who would oversee the ongoing trading of the site after launch. We also had great support from our team of developers, and representatives from the agency's advisory panel, the Strategy team (a team of disciplinary specialists, of which I was a member of).

Discovery

This project was slightly unusual in that I was provided secondary research as the foundation of the project, but launch deadlines limited the time available for further discovery (again: fail fast, learn fast). My task was to digest the research, produce assumptions about the user needs & expectations and to quickly launch an MVP service. Thankfully the market research agency which had conducted the initial research had been thorough, enabling me to create detailed (yet hypothetical) personas and user stories to anchor the Alimento service to.

I knew that users who suffered from dysphagia were quite often embarrassed about their condition, so I would need to design an experience which avoided any design or content that overly symbolised medical patients or medical environments, and opt for an experience that would champion the normality of the service.

After launch, user research and usability testing became a continuous activity helping us to strengthen the Alimento performance within the proof of concept trial. Soon after activation we launched an education hub with complementary user flows when we learned half of our purchasing users were actually buying on behalf of a relative with dysphagia.

We also found that many of our returning users didn't identify specifically with dysphagia but actually a variety of conditions where Alimento had made a positive impact, and so we optimised the “About Alimento'' landing pages to introduce a “Who Is It For” section. This allowed the users to validate the Alimento service for themselves, and also meant that we no longer excluded other users of the service who didn't identify with dysphagia.

Solution

As mentioned, the Alimento website saw three significant releases which came as a result of redefining and refining Alimento's strategy:

Release 1 saw the activation of the brand, website and marketing, and also the launch of our primary user research initiatives.

Release 2 expanded the brand image to reflect learnings from the user research and expansion in the product portfolio, but also introduced a more welcoming experience with animated USPs and product pods with add to basket ‘ticker’ CTA controls, making it easier to add greater quantities of products to the basket, which increased the AOV and items per order.

Release 3 further developed the brand’s art direction, this time taking cues from the product packaging leading to friendlier, more aesthetic and approachable product card designs. Product benefits were also added to the product cards, subscription controls were introduced. This release greatly optimised the design for mobile devices, with a sticky menu and basket at the bottom of the screen allowing for a more comfortable and intuitive browsing experience.

Delivery

Alimento was a client that really believed in user centric design. 

Being a start up, we had to be strict with budgets and keep costs to a minimum, which caused quite a few features to fall out of scope. However, if we had the data to support our theory, all options would still be considered.

The third release of Alimento.co.uk increased the conversion rate to about 3.9% (although this was often impacted by mis-aligned marketing campaigns)  and we achieved on average 80 orders per month, which our client was happy with - this surpassed our performance target.

In an unfortunate turn of events, my team left the agency, and Alimento.co.uk ceased trading 4 months later.

Reflection

A fast moving and adaptive project, but I like a challenge! 

I understand that the fail fast, learn fast approach is not usually an appropriate approach to projects, especially with regards to live, public facing services. I do however think the mentality of low fidelity, high output concepts and solutions and the iterative process of developing solutions are things that are essential to all design processes.

Despite the disappointing/abrupt end to the project, there were successes to be taken from the project, and one is the user centric design legacy I hope to have left at the agency. 

Above I mentioned how I valued having clients who appreciated user centric design, and I strongly believe our progress and success were a result of this. I also mentioned mis-aligned marketing campaigns negatively impacting the site's performance metrics; these two factors prompted me to approach the senior leadership team of the agency and explain the need for data sharing and alignment between the marketing channels, the trading teams and UX&D teams.

I produced a presentation outlining the benefits of an aligned agency offering that co-ordinated it's client deliverables around the user, from PPC and Affiliate promotions, through to website personalisation and trading initiatives. I presented a strategy of how this information could be shared, from the point of client onboarding, through to quarterly business reviews and client exit interviews, with cross-team collaboration balancing performance goals with fundamental needs and expectations of the user.

My proposal was initially met with hesitation, but ultimately it gained favour. The Managing Director worked with me on the strategy before presenting it to the parent company, TCC Global.