CASE STUDY GROWTH DESIGN
THERMOMETER ADS DESIGN
Increase the purchase volume of the Yummly Smart Thermometer IoT device through advertising placement and user interface optimization.
THE SMART THERMOMETER
The Yummly Smart Thermometer is a kitchen device designed to help you cook meat to the perfect temperature with precision. It connects to an app on your smartphone via Bluetooth, allowing you to monitor the cooking progress in real-time. You can set temperature goals for different types of meat and doneness levels, and the app will notify you when your food reaches the desired temperature.
OBJECTIVE
Understand the buyer persona, designing ads and selling as many Yummly Smart Thermometer as possible in a smart amount of time.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Lead growth designer for research, planning, and prototyping efforts to find directions and validate solutions through rapid testing.
DURATION
- 2 week persona research
- 4 week design and specification
- 2 months engineering
OUTCOMES
TEAMS
BUSINESS CONTEXT
TIME TO MAKE MONEY!
Yummly faced challenges with its profitability model, as its subscription services and premium features weren't enough to cover daily operating costs. This financial strain put significant pressure on its parent company, Whirlpool. However, the success of the Smart Thermometer in retail stores led Whirlpool to push Yummly towards profitability. To achieve this, Whirlpool urged the team to pursue ad placements—a strategy Yummly’s CEO had previously avoided as a revenue model—to promote Smart Thermometer sales on its web and mobile platforms.
ANALYSIS
FOCUS INTERVIEWS
Conducted 30-minute focus interviews via Google Meet with five Yummly users who purchased the Smart Thermometer to learn about their background, motivation, and pain points in order to help shape the design narrative.
INSIGHTS
RESEARCH SYTHESIS
MENTAL MODEL
USER PERSONA
Collaborating with the product manager, we created a user persona that encapsulates all the key insights from our focus interviews. This persona highlights crucial details such as user motivations, pain points, and, most importantly, the reasons behind their decision to purchase the smart thermometer.
OBJECTIVES
DESIGN GUIDELINES
The focus interview and user persona gave designs some clear guidelines to follow...
IDEATION
LANDING PAGE REDESIGN
The thermometer landing page, which housed device information and the checkout flow, needed improvement. The current design (shown below) lacked essential elements like pricing, an add-to-cart option, and a clear device description, making it difficult for users to make informed purchasing decisions. This poor user experience also contributed to drop-offs at the "Buy Now" button. The product manager and I hypothesized that a more streamlined and intuitive landing page would lead to better checkout conversion rates.
The new checkout page was redesigned to function as a dedicated product purchasing page, immediately showcasing pricing, an "Add to Cart" call to action, and a product carousel. This clear layout signaled to users that this was the starting point of the purchasing process. To minimize distractions, I also removed the navigation bar on the left, reducing unnecessary noise. These changes significantly improved the volume of "Add to Cart" actions.
NAVIGATION BAR
The PM and I recognized the need to better utilize the navigation bar to promote the thermometer. As shown on the right, I prioritized the Thermometer tab, aligning it with our business objectives. I added an accordion interaction, allowing users to easily add the thermometer to their shopping cart and explore other features. During sales seasons, this tab transforms into a space for promotional content. Here's an example of a promotion design I created for the navigation bar. Given the limited space, I carefully crafted the ad to feel seamlessly integrated with the navigation bar, using familiar components and ensuring it wasn't too intrusive to the overall navigation experience.
STANDARD PLATFOM ADS
Here are several design variants for a standard thermometer ad across the platform. The concept was to use bold, high-contrast background colors to make the ad stand out amidst the many competing recipe images. Additionally, we created various design combinations for A/B testing to gather maximum feedback and optimize results. This included experimenting with different wording, imagery, and minimalist approaches. The ad had to be adaptable for responsive design, which imposed certain limitations and constraints.
INTEGRATED RECIPE ADS
My goal was to create a sense of harmony and tranquility in the ad placement by using consistent component blocks, making the ads feel more naturally woven into the overall experience. This approach allowed users to focus on the content first, with the ads feeling less obtrusive. I experimented with various ideas, such as embedding ads within images or making them subtly pop out. This method was applied primarily to recipes that required thermometer usage, but the concept extended to articles as well, prompting further exploration.
IN TWO MONTHS...
DATA OUTCOME
