adidas Click B2B: Simplifying Order & Cart Management
How I led user research and product design to simplify the cart and order experience for a globally recognised retail e-commerce B2B platform — across 5 market areas, 5,000+ users, and a 5-day design sprint.
Role
Lead User Researcher & Product Designer
Duration
8 months
Year
2020
Client
Accenture / adidas (internal)
UX Case Study
For a Globally Recognised Retail e-Commerce Product
Overview
The customer is a multinational corporation that designs and manufactures athletic and casual footwear, apparel, and accessories based in Germany. It also owns several subsidiary brands, each operating independently but contributing to the overall brand group.
Project Brief
Simplify the cart experience that is fast, easy, and intuitive — based on a deep understanding of user behaviour and challenges from various user segments and market areas spread across the globe.
Business Context
How might we improve the cart experience and bring cart duplication to multiple sold-to accounts? The existing flow was causing friction, drop-offs, and manual workarounds for store managers across markets.
The Design Process
The design process is a structured yet flexible framework that helps solve problems and create meaningful, user-centred solutions. It involved four phases — Discover, Define, Design, and Deliver — operating as a double diamond with Empathy and Design as the two key lenses.
Phase 1
Empathy
- Existing product research
- Stakeholder discussions
- User interviews
- Focus group sessions
- Usability tests
Phase 2
Define
- User personas
- User journey maps
- Formulate hypothesis
- Data synthesis & affinity
- AS-IS journeys
Phase 3
Design
- Design sprint workshop
- To-be journey map
- Creation session
- Lightning demos
- Prototype
Phase 4
Deliver
- High fidelity prototype
- UX documentation
- User stories
- OBJ/EPC creation
- Asset creation
Phase 1 — Empathy
Who are the Users & User Demographics
The brand has a diverse user base spanning various demographics, interests, and geographical locations. 16 focus group sessions were planned per country and market area to deeply understand user behaviour before any design work began.
5
Market Areas Identified
40
User Interviews Conducted
16
Focus Groups Initiated
8
Usability Tests Conducted
Existing Product Research
Researched by studying the existing process of the product and diving deep into the current experience of the order process. This uncovered usability issues and important insights around user goals and pain areas.
User & Stakeholder Interviews & Usability Tests
Conducted user interviews to identify end-user pain points. Stakeholder interviews provided diverse perspectives and expectations around the product from a business context. These interviews involved individuals and groups who had a vested interest in the product's success.
Stakeholders: Store Managers, Market area managers, Sales people, Product owners
What Stakeholders Said
- “Want possibility to search and sort products by some attributes. Sizes are not intuitive, different ones, not matching with European sizes.
- “Previewing product availabilities in the date selector is not optimal, as well as selecting and switching delivery dates is not intuitive.
- “Some filters are not working properly like available products. Others are not very noticeable like assortments.
- “There is no provision for adding products with single click & calculating NPC takes time.
Phase 2 — Define
Affinity Sorting & How Might We?
Based on the users data, I used the Affinity technique to group similar items together and categorise them by label headings. Four key areas emerged: Products Catalog, Checkout, Review, and Global Needs.
Products Catalog
- Search & filter improvements
- Size guidance inline
- Availability visibility
- Assortment clarity
Checkout
- Multi-location delivery
- Delivery date selection
- NPC calculation speed
- Cart duplication
Review
- Order confirmation flow
- Status tracking
- Notification triggers
- Filter persistence
Global Needs
- Cross-market consistency
- Performance at scale
- Offline capability
- Bulk operations
Hypothesis
Formulated hypotheses suggesting potential answers to the problem. Hypotheses are derived from research, usability testing, observations, and experiences from users. Tentative statements indicating relationships between study variables — category of users and their needs.
User Personas
Personas helped me and stakeholders understand and empathise with users' needs, experiences, behaviours, and goals. They kept the user at the centre of the design process and ensured the product meets the needs and goals of users.
Persona
Alex Rodriguez
Age 38 · Store Manager · Chicago
“Looking for save my order filters so that I can reply filters for future orders”
Goals
- Healthy lifestyle & peaceful life
- Target to reach orders on time
- Close working hours on time
Frustrations
- Placing orders while seeing sold-out products with no notifications
- System slowdowns forcing manual workarounds
- No way to save or reapply order filters
How to Design
- Quick flow of tasks
- Designs optimised for larger screens
- Enable notifications and order tracking
- Quick order status visibility
Motivations
Persona
Catherin
Age 29 · Store Manager · Metro City, USA
“Looking for quick flows and mass actions in just few clicks”
Goals
- Healthy lifestyle & peaceful life
- Target to reach orders on time
- Close working hours on time
Frustrations
- Cart duplication across multiple sold-to accounts is manual and slow
- No batch actions available for frequent repeat orders
- Filter and availability state not carried between sessions
How to Design
- Quick flow of tasks
- Designs for bigger screens
- Enable notifications and reviews
- Quick order tracking
Motivations
Phase 3 — Design
The Design Sprint
The primary goal was to validate the “How Might We” with business teams, stakeholders, and SMEs of the product — and to define the way forward, aligning on business goals. The sprint is a five-day workshop for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.
Day 1
Understand
Planned to gain a shared understanding of the problem and the business context. Engaged with stakeholders and experts to gather insights by interviewing them. Asked them to explore the problem space and map the user flow using the HMW notes. Defined the sprint goals, outlined long-term objectives and key questions that need answering.
Days 2 & 3
Sketch & Decide
Lightning Demos: reviewed existing solutions for inspiration. Sketching: individually sketched detailed solutions using a structured method (Crazy 8s, Solution Sketch). Art Museum: participants displayed all sketches for review. Heat Map dot voting to identify promising ideas. Speed Critique: discussed highlights and weaknesses. Decision: used structured dot voting to choose the best solution. Storyboard: created a detailed storyboard outlining how the prototype would work.
Day 4
Prototype
Divide and Conquer: assigned roles and tasks/modules to efficiently build the prototype focusing on the decided solution from pain points & user needs, key interactions and visual elements. Integrated the individual pieces into a cohesive, testable prototype.
Day 5
Test
Tested the prototype with real users across market areas. Observed how users interacted with the new cart management flows, collected structured feedback, and documented findings to validate or invalidate sprint hypotheses before development handoff.
Research & Design Tools
Phase 4 — Solution Design
Prototype
The solution is designed keeping in mind all the users' data, hypotheses, and design sprint outcomes. The whole solution has been broken down as modules defined in the to-be journey map from the design sprint.
Multi Cart Management
Multi-selection of products to the cart by single click. Category status of each product is clearly shown to help users make informed decisions. Seamless checkout process allowing users to add various product categories into multiple carts.
- Multi-select products to cart in one click
- Cart status and category visibility
- Seamless multi-product checkout
Multiple Carts
Multiple cart feature for different delivery locations in a single checkout. CRUD feature for easy cart management. Total number of carts and price of total products visible in each cart at all times.
- Different carts per delivery location
- CRUD operations for cart management
- Total cost visibility across all carts
Bulk Import via Excel
Bulk products import via Excel for offline product managers: upload then sync to system for easy order production. Import & Export user journey goes through certain stages of file validation. Cart page is updated and products shown as green cells upon successful import.
- Upload & download Excel with product import
- Blank template download for data entry
- File validation stages with clear feedback
Final Solution
The solution screens have been created considering the customer brand and design system. The grid system and layout structures are maintained across the application. The final solution is fully responsive — designed and validated on desktop, tablet, and mobile.
Desktop
Validated
Tablet
Validated
Mobile
Validated
Results
The implementation of multiple carts in the e-commerce platform significantly enhanced the user experience, providing better organisation, smoother transactions, and improved checkout efficiency. Users found it easier to manage their purchases, leading to increased engagement and satisfaction.
70%
Cart Abandonment Rate
Display all rows upfront to avoid surprises — increase in completed checkouts due to reduced cart abandonment.
60%
User Retention & Return Rate
Improvement in user engagement, with more users utilising multiple carts for different needs.
20%
Conversion Rate
Faster Checkout — users could complete purchases without adding or removing unrelated items.
50%
NPS Improvement
NPS improved due to simplified interactions, with higher customer satisfaction and positive feedback.
Overall, the introduction of multiple carts proved to be a successful UX enhancement, driving both user satisfaction and business performance.
Next Case Study
2019