Prototyping the Lids Custom Zone

When fans want to represent their favorite teams or sports they often visit Lids, a specialty retailer with more than 1,000 stores. Many are delighted to find out that they can customize a hat on site in many retail locations. Now, fans can enjoy that same personalization when they purchase hats online. The Lids Custom Zone enables a shopper to order a hat online, customize it with a player signature, mascot, or other item embroidered on the side, and have it sent straight to their home.

Lids challenged the creative digital agency Perficient Digital to bring the experience to life in time for the 2017 holidays. Using Adobe XD CC in Adobe Creative Cloud for teams, the Perficient Digital user experience (UX) team successfully created wireframes and a working prototype within four weeks.

“We focused on mobile first because there are more constraints with mobile,” says Brian Flanagan, Director of Experience Design at Perficient Digital. “Adobe XD CC let us take a leaner, guerilla-style approach, validate ideas quickly, and move on.”

The Adobe XD prototype enabled users to select text and graphics, apply them to a hat, and view their selections from any mobile device or web browser. Perficient Digital shared the prototype in Lids stores for actual customers to use and give feedback. It featured more than 60 screen variations, which gave Lids valuable insights into customer behaviors and preferences.

“With Adobe XD CC, we were able to quickly prototype and test the solution with actual customers, which allowed us to better understand their behavior and fine tune the experience to meet their expectations,” says Steve Wentzell, Senior Director, E-commerce at Lids Sports Group.

Read more about how Lids created an online Custom Zone with Adobe XD.