GRUPO ARCA

Grupo Arca is a marble and granite store in Mexico specialized in selling porcelains, carpets, and vinyl. Passionate about transforming spaces, Grupo Arca has evolved into a hub of creative networks that promotes design, culture, and art through extraordinary experiences.

But, having a great brand and outstanding content online, their current site does not reflect the kind of service they seek to offer to their customers.

Grupo Arca wanted to improve their site’s experience and interfaces but didn’t know how or where to start. We proposed a Design Sprint —a virtual one.

The idea of having a Virtual Design Sprint (VDS) was to help them define which features of their actual site needed to be adapted in order to develop a new one. But, instead of doing it face-to-face (because covid) we decided to do it online.

Aiming to align Grupo Arca’s ideas with their real needs, through the VDS we:

• Set the challenge to overcome during the VDS: How their customers can have access to the factory price?
• Did the Sailor Boat exercise: a tool that allowed us to look into their reach and limitations in a more comprehensive and general way.
• Applied the Feature Generator process, where we defined the characteristics of the product's MVP: the kind of users and the specific tasks to which it is geared. We also set the number of screens and functionalities for the new site.
• Got a clear benchmark for the stakeholders through a UX Discovery, a tool that gave us inspiration for the User Experience (UX) desig
• Created a workflow with medium resolution wireframes that helped us anticipate possible issues with the UX.os
• We managed usability testing and a prototype with real users. They showed us the analysis and validation points within the workflow and their opinion about their experience on the site.

To sum up, the methodology helped us to validate our hypothesis and gave us recommendations and guidelines regarding it.

By examining the data collected in the VDS, we set on that:

• Having access to physical samples is highly relevant for users, so we recommend the logistics of samples shipping to be as efficient as possible.
• The product specifications and technical data sheets need to be clear and complete because they help users to compare different materials and to make better buying decisions.
• Creating a wish list feature will be great so that the client can add their favorite products and share the list with other people.
• Offer the option of comparison charts for the products to show the required features and in that way help the user to have better decision-making.
• Because of their users’ segment, we recommend having a project module that generates a pre-purchase list to be sent by designers or architects to their final clients.
• In the product detail page, it will be good if it displays an estimated cost based on the location given by the user with a zip code, that would also suggest alternatives of similar materials with lower shipping costs
• Recommend to have a customer service number, a chat room, or sales staff to attend the showroom’s visits and provide assistance.
• Suggest considering the possibility of offering a cataloged blog with notes and tips about the use and possible applications of their products, or a gallery of outstanding projects as success stories.
• Endorse to have a sufficient amount of high-quality images, especially whit the ones about the products.
• Propose to optimize the workflow of the shopping cart by displaying it in a more noticeable and accessible way.
• Put up that an alternative option to generate revenue would be through subscriptions with attractive and well-defined benefits for different subscription levels.

We did a full and detailed report with the results of the Virtual Design Sprint. This report included:

• The results of the Workshop
• Sailboat Vision
• Features generator
• Sketches and wireframes
• Prototype and user tests
• Findings
• Proposal
• Recommendations and conclusions
• Project estimation

Delivering this Virtual Design Sprint process helped us, and mostly Grupo Arca, to clarify and unify the ideas around the project. It also brought us to a better position to start with an MVP and to more accurately estimate all the defined features in the development of their new site