Zippy (SONAE)

Brand identity, Digital design, Brand strategy

An interactive experience for parents to keep precious moments of their children’s growth.

Zippy is a well-established Portuguese retail for children and nursery products. With over 20 years of experience, the international brand has challenged our team to create a digital experience that engages users and increases sales. We have developed an interactive timeline: a simple way for parents to collect their kids’ milestones, with a touch of gamification by inviting users to enjoy activities in family.

Building upon the customer data provided by our client, we started by conducting an exploratory research on parenthood, to define today’s parents needs and pain points.

Semi-structured interviews and a short survey were then implemented. To serve as a barometer, research goals were previously translated into a few questions:

• What are the common routines of today’s parents?
• How do parents spend time with their children?
• How do parents experience parenthood?
• What are the main highlights and obstacles?
• What are parents habits when purchasing clothes and accessories for children?
• How do parents interact with technology?

To make sense of the large body of information, core research insights were extracted and translated into statements.

1. Parents want to keep memories - Parents of small children love to keep track of every milestone of their child and are excited about registering and saving these once-in-a-lifetime moments
2. Parents love to save time - When it comes to get new clothes and nursery items for their children, parents are picky about what they want but, above all things, they like the purchase to be quick and easy.
3. Parents need help - mums and dads often resort to online resources to get parental tips, from health to educational advices. 
4. Parents like a good challenge - Kids can get bored easily, so parents need to diversify activities and be dynamic. Enough said, suggestions are always welcome!

Informed by data from surveys and interviews, a user persona was created to contextualise the most comprehensive insights from respondents.

As a first step into generating ideas, insights were reframed as ‘How can we’ questions, in order to bring the team closer to the problem-solving mindset. An intensive session of brainstorming has followed, where the team energised towards innovative solutions. Members focused on generating and sharing ideas on a digital interactive environment.

We came up with a design concept that seems to satisfy both user and business goals. Timeline Zippy is an interactive platform that helps parents to easily add milestones of their kids’ growth. 

By making a resourceful and safe use of this data, the app also supports parents when clothing their kids. The mobile experience keeps users engaged by earning badges for completed activities and new moments added to the timeline.

User story + user journey

An ideal user path was defined, with a short story and a journey map that depicts the user’s emotional ups and downs, as well as each touchpoint  they might have with the application. 

Based on the hierarchy level of information, and sustained by a Card Sorting method implemented with a few participants, a sitemap was defined for Timeline Zippy.

A initial user flow has been designed with low-fidelity screens, to make sense of our information architecture. Producing wireframes was our first dive into the user interface design. Different variations were tested until landing on the design solution best suited to our users.

Design

Zippy has a solid brand identity and design system, so our prototype was built around such guidelines. The client provided us upfront all the necessary documentation and assets, so at this step we were able to develop new visual elements to our product, by incorporating and transforming the brand systemic design.   

Introducing

Timeline Zippy

Never miss a moment again

Users can easily navigate through the timeline by scrolling to see added milestones, shopped items and completed activities. The top bar can be tapped to see other child’s timeline or to check earned badges. 

Bit by bit, creating a story

Moments are simple and quick to add to the timeline, either from a list of milestones or a fully customised event.

Add value to family moments

Users have exclusive access to workshops, activities and parental tips to elevate their experiences in family and get the support they need during this big adventure of being a parent. To spice things up, users can earn badges according to their engagement.

Discover a time-saving personalised shopping

Users get the help they need when the time comes to renew the kids’ wardrobe. Product suggestions are tailored to the child’s age, the season of the year and preferred styles of the family.