Project: Shopify Fulfillment Network website

Context

Shopify was about to relaunch its done-for-you order delivery service… and its web page was a little rough.

On top of that, the program managers and finance teams were still finalizing the product in the days leading up to the launch.

Constraints

Time frame: 6 weeks
Components: new and existing
Format: web

The challenge

Creating web pages for this product-in-progress had a few speed bumps:

Target merchants lacked familiarity with scalable logistics.
Shopify introduced a brand-new pricing model for a logistics service.
Few people inside the company understood the product.

Luckily, the product was actually quite good, and the pricing model had the merchant’s best interests at heart. None of the mental models or user education would have mattered otherwise.

Recreating the new pages came down to two approaches:

User education resting on soundinformation architecture.
An effective flow built around progressive disclosure.

The solution

A crystal-clear value proposition

I expanded on “let us ship your products” to a focused value proposition. The supporting statements entwine sales and education to build interest alongside creditibility.

Setting onboarding expectations

I held workshops with the program manager and the product marketing manager to distill the onboarding process into 3 core steps. We struck a balance between accuracy and relevancy.

Framed with clarity, not "sizzle"

Naturally, everyone wanted to load these pages to the brim with “features.” We negotiated on a separate page where users could read about them in an organized manner. This let the most important information stay in the spotlight.

Simplifying a complex pricing model

A blend of product details, visual thinking, and information architecture made this pricing matrix. We simplified the price-per-item model with common examples to show realistic costs. Users could quickly intuit their own profit margins by extension, which was a key goal for the content strategy.

Answering nitty-gritty questions

Complex products create complex questions. We put them in a separate page accessible through clear sub-navigation on the website. Aside from the obvious reasons, we tackled the uncomfortable questions to instill confidence in the whole product, not just the signup process.