Dr Martens – Navigation
Project impact:
5.4% increase in conversion in the US and 4% in EMEA, where add to bags have also been significantly up by 2.1%. 7-digit scaled annual impact on revenue.
Took the project from research through testing to delivery.
Research phase:
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199 items in the menu excluding the unisex category (which was in process to be changed ahead of this piece), causing:
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Choice paralysis
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Accessibility: direct feedback from a customer that it's too long for screen readers to navigate
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Operational challenges: hard to monitor categories (some had 0 results)
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Cross-referenced the current menu with best practices based on the Baymard Institute's findings:
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Fewer than 10 subcategories per category
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Avoid using categories with common features (categories that could be filters)
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Each PLP should have at least 15 products
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Avoid overlapping categories
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Challenges:
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100 links with 0.01% click rate or lower, including the entire Explore (content) section
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Header breaking into two lines for 15% of desktop users, making navigation clunky
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The data is not a 100% reliable due to frequent changes
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Menu images had high visibility but low revenue impact, pushing critical nav items out of view
Testing phase:
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Reduced categories to 71 (SEO-approved)
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Created 3 variants for testing:
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Merge hamburger menu with search
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Open top level nav, collapse search
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Original solution: hamburger + open search with updated UI
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Froze category changes during the test period, deprioritised Explore, removed mobile images, and made UI improvements
Results & implementation:
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The open nav variant won, improving engagement despite search's higher conversion (probably due to intent)
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Collaborated with teams to refine our solutions, finalise tickets and align desktop (low traffic share) to the new mobile UI
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Rigorously QA tested and worked with front-end development to ensure pixel-perfect delivery