Vivint is a smart home security provider, with products including cameras, door locks, and thermostats. Traditionally a door-to-door sales company, they entered the eCommerce space in 2020. To help drive traffic to their new online store, Vivint wanted to convert their mobile app into a sales channel, leveraging its large user base. I worked with the core apps team to improve the current promotional sections of the app while expanding where we provide product education. The result was increased traffic from their existing hamburger menu store link by 109% and three new areas in the app for customers to learn about their system and expanded product offerings.

Because these were already paying customers, we wanted to be mindful about how we presented products to avoid being too sales-like or making customers feel like their system needed to be improved. On the flip side, Vivnt saw that 73% of its customers weren’t aware of its latest product offerings. We needed a solution to balance increasing awareness while not being too pushy. Our approach was to direct traffic in a meaningful and educational way. Instead of marketing new products solely by their features, we focused on how new products could pair with their current system and the utility the combination would provide.

I started the project with a discovery session to identify areas within the app’s current IA where we could add product education about devices users didn’t have. Explorations included improvements to the two existing areas within Vivint’s app for product education and new places to promote features.

Most of the features planned would be marked successful or not based on the user’s sentiment and how discoverable they were. Because of this, our user testing needed to be qualitative to learn what information would be interesting to the user and what would intrigue them to visit the store.

Working with Vivint’s internal Research and Insights team, we leveraged usertesting.com to connect with people and gauge their opinions on the various designs to direct traffic to the store. We tested discoverability, sentiment, and whether the user found the information presented valuable. Asking the user questions such as, “On a scale of 1 - 10, how likely would you be to purchase this product?” helped us compare different forms of educational material and determine which method and topics resonated most with users. This research identified key areas within the app where we could promote educational material and direct the user to the store.

When revising the two existing sales channels, we focused on increasing discoverability to make users more aware of the store. For the promotional banners in the app, we leveraged an existing design to promote Vivint’s new insurance and energy initiatives.

When looking a the hamburger menu, we created different sections for each line time to live: one dedicated to the user’s smart home and one devoted to shopping and information. Sectioning them helped users parse the menu line items easier and helped increase the discoverability of the store. Additionally, we implemented a promotional badge for the hamburger menu for sales events in the store, new inbox items, and any new line item on the menu.

The three new areas in the app served primarily as customer education and driving traffic to the store. To increase the customer’s purchase conversion rates, we developed each new feature based on different types of customers:

01. The customer that doesn’t have many products or know what products are available.

02. The customer who wants to upgrade but doesn’t know which products pair well with the devices they already have.

03. The power customer who wants to learn about the best way to optimize their system and what additional devices they can purchase for added functionality and security.

In the eight months I was at Vivint, I was able to redesign their hamburger menu to match their new design system and place a greater emphasis on shopping and educating, increasing conversions from 3.15% to 6.61%, resulting in users visiting the menu to the store 109% more. I also designed three new areas within the apps to promote products and education, including a page dedicated to education and awareness.