After Walmart improved its signs several years ago based on an analysis by Lippincott, the retailer saw a seven per cent increase in store traffic among high-income customers.
Photo courtesy Lippincott
Experience design
The term ‘experience design’ was first used in the 1999 book The Experience Economy, by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, to explain how companies that once simply created products or offered services are now packaging entire experiences for their customers. Today, business and design consultancies that specialize in experience design have transformed many retail environments.
One area where experience design has had an enormous impact is reinforcing consistency of nomenclature, terminology and imagery between retailers’ wayfinding signs, marketing materials and websites. Indeed, this has become a core strategy for retailers to improve their overall appeal to customers.
Approximately five years ago, for example, Walmart undertook complete renovations based on an experience analysis by Lippincott, a creative consultancy. Improvements were made to everything from interior signs to website formatting, resulting in a seven per cent increase in store traffic among higher-income customers.
Similarly, in 2008, Canada’s Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank converted the Commerce Bank branches it had acquired in the U.S., with the assistance of Toronto-based EGD firm Shikatani Lacroix. The project focused on developing specific ‘touchpoints’ that would have the biggest impact on the customer experience, including modular systems for marketing financial products that closely aligned with the branches’ window frames, as well as illuminated signs at the service desk, automated teller machines (ATMs) and lobby, all managed so as to minimize clutter. Newer locations also featured greater integration of digital signage into the architecture.
Effective signs
For many years, signs were considered the most disposable components of retail stores. They were made with inexpensive materials and changed out with minimal thought given to their scale, clutter or impact beyond the immediately obvious need to identify an area of the store.
With recent efforts to improve the customer experience, many retailers now see signs as an important investment, worthy of the same care as other in-store fixtures. This has led to improvements in a number of areas:
Legibility
Many store designs now reflect the importance of legible signs, to the point where modelling software is used to preview and analyze customers’ viewing ‘corridors’ before an actual store is built. Legibility is achieved through a combination of typeface, scale and contrast.
Dimensionality
Retailers are finding opportunities to use channel letters, projecting signs, awnings and other traditional outdoor signs inside their stores. By replacing typically ‘flat’ indoor signs, they help make the interiors look more like storefronts or street fairs.
