Redesign and Optimizely Development

During our multi-day, on-site discovery and research sessions with the Pallas team, we asked questions about how designers used the fabrics in their real work settings. These questions helped us understand when and where in their process designers would consider fabrics and what information they need to be successful. We also observed how designers found fabric specs and communicated those findings with their clients.

In the course of our research we discovered that some of the fabric’s most important technical specs were buried inside a PDF which made it difficult for sales teams and independent sales personnel to access. 

In addition, the website logic left many users with the impression that fabric samples were never available, even if that wasn’t the case. 

A key component of this project was to adequately display the richness and vibrance of the exquisite fabrics offered by Pallas. Each product page needed to convey the fine details of the fabric and present them in a clean, well organized, professional setting. 

To address designer needs, we created an interactive design board where designers could save swatches and images, order fabric samples, and create and share boards for various projects. We made sure that fabric swatches were large enough where texture was immediately visible—no more “click to enlarge.” We also focused on making the website search more prominent for designers who know exactly what they are looking for.

For sales teams, we knew that search was critical to helping them generate leads and sell more products. We integrated Vulcan and Elastic Search to create a search platform where efficiency was prioritized over functionality. We also added filtering abilities through a much needed “Browse Textiles” feature. 

Additionally, we reorganized the website architecture based on our usability research findings, paper prototyping, and simulating how users would use the new Pallas Textile website.

Performance and stability issues were addressed by migrating the site from Ektron to the latest version of Episerver CMS (now Optimizely).  This phase encompassed:

• Technical Architecture and implementation of the platform 
• Content migration planning and training 
• Performance optimization and hosting readiness planning

Pallas also required a variety of integrations with Optimizely. These integrations include:

• Widen DAM: Cloud-based digital asset management solution.
• BPCS: An ERP that manages product data and processes orders.
• Vulcan Elastic Search: Manages search data for the website.
• Big Picture Machine: A tool that handles product picture renderings and fabrics overlays in real time.
• Concurra: Website Optimization tool for analytics, heat mapping, split testing and goal tracking.