The opportunity
Our UX team at Adobe Commerce (FKA Magento) was looking for a way to stand out and engage merchants who were attending the annual Imagine conference. I proposed an interactive experience that will engage our users and will be memorable. I was leading this project with the help of my direct manager and a UX researcher.
A UX tarot game!
When thinking about personas, I noticed that tarot readers can summarize human traits, this generalization is a powerful tool!
The first thing we did was to distill 5 persona archetypes. five e-commerce merchant archetypes based on our existing merchant personas.
Brainstorming the different groups
We created a survey that based on a few simple questions will determine which merchant archetype best fits the answers.
THE DISTILLED PERSONAS
- The Gambler, Big risks lead to big rewards.
- The Alchemist, You know that new combinations can lead to exciting breakthroughs.
- The Optimizer, You've got a good thing going on, but you're going to make it better.
- The Steadfast, While others are running around, you're staying the course.
- The Strategist, You have all the moves.
Persona cards + Traits cards
Inspiration
People could take a photo as their inner merchant persona
For us, the whole point was the conversations that followed
We gave out a UX persona card deck and asked participants to give us feedback.
Peter, my UX manager doing a live "Reading"
Love / Breakup letters
This section was an opportunity for merchants to give shoutouts, feedback, and requests. Visitors wrote us to thank you and feedback letters, then they stamped it with a thumbs up or down stamp.
UX fortunes
Similar to fortune cookies merchants could take a mysterious card with commerce tips.
Survey icons
Feedback
The booth drew significant interest from a multitude of visitors who were eager to participate in our "Tarot reading" activity or provide feedback discreetly through compliments or complaint letters. Visitors actively shared their experiences through social media posts. It is worth mentioning that Adobe's design leaders praised the activity when Adobe acquired Magento later that year.