Vivendum is a leading global provider of premium branded hardware products and software solutions. It is the parent company of Manfrotto; a company that designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of camera and lighting support equipment for the professional photographic, film, theatre, live entertainment and video markets.
Vivendum approached KIJO with a view to updating the Manfrotto app. The aim was to improve the user’s purchasing and product discovery process, modernise the user interface (UI) and enhance the overall user experience (UX).
Improvement in performance when retrieving the product catalogue via their API
Average client NPS score
Manfrotto wanted to improve the user’s purchasing experience and enhance the user experience (UX) of discovering products.
Notably, there was no filter offering on the previous app. This meant finding products that met the user’s needs was difficult and off putting. So, to bolster the user’s product discovery experience, KIJO implemented an intuitive and useful filtering system. It is now possible for the user to filter by all of the specification values of the products and their unique attributes (colour, weight, height etc.)
This multi-level, dynamic filtering system now exposes all the key details of the products and allows users to combine filters together, enabling them to find the perfect product quickly and efficiently.
The filters will also change depending on the selections made. Once a user selects a filter, it will disable those which aren’t compatible with the ones selected. This will prevent no products being shown. A user will now always be able to find a product that matches their filters, saving them time and ensuring the right product is always presented to them.
Users are also able to save the combinations of their searched filters for future usage within their account. This functional feature encourages them to return to their search, the app as a whole and explore the Manfrotto product offering further. With a target audience of camera and lighting professionals, these users would be able to save a set of filters for products tailored to a particular shoot or job. This will save them valuable time as they’ll always see products with the correct and required specification, even when product availability has changed.
KIJO also ensured that filters will now dynamically update as the product catalogue changes, meaning the app doesn’t need to be manually updated.
The KIJO design team introduced an upgraded favourites feature to enhance the user experience of the app. Users can now create multiple favourite lists, give it a name and add multiple products to it. We also added the ability to include articles and videos in a user’s favourites section too.
In the previous design, the favourites list existed as one list. Now, professionals working in the image and motion capture industry can segregate their favourite items into specific categories.
This new feature feels particularly tailored to the target audience. It enhances the collaboration process by making sharing products and knowledge amongst colleagues and peers easier.
The previous app’s UI was arguably clunky, outdated and inconsistent. The KIJO team overhauled and reimagined a new design system, component library, and modernised the UI completely.
KIJO created a UI which adhered to the latest standards of modern app design. We included up-to-date features like whitespace, micro interactions, typography, components, and improved the micro copy.
The previous app made use of very heavy colours like red backgrounds which contributed to that out-of-date feel. We flipped this up and used the Manfrotto brand colour as an ascent instead. This felt more subtle and intentional, as this meant the red was then being utilised for important action buttons and calls to action.
The KIJO team looked into the core functionality of the app too, and designed icons which we felt represented the functionality. We pulled some common motifs from across the app ecosystem which were familiar to the existing user (this reduced any potential friction for the user), alongside creating custom icons which were specific to photography and lighting. This meant that users would find it easy to start using the app and, more importantly, keep using it. In addition, we also introduced a modern sans serif font which improved the legibility of the text within the app.
The previous Manfrotto app was very slow at showing the products when the app was first loaded too. In KIJO’s new design, the products and categories load 10x faster. By rewriting the underlying database queries and application programming interfaces (APIs), a ten fold improvement in speed was enabled by our developers.
By utilising our extensive experience and honing in on our understanding of the Manfrotto customer, the KIJO team have managed to deliver a modern, functional, sleek and usable application.
Key, upgraded features like the saved filters and multiple favourites list are specifically aimed at image and motion capture professionals that host a variety of shoots, all with different requirements. These neat additions save them time and effort, making their job easier. The fact the Manfrotto app now loads 10x faster complements this immeasurably too. The app is now impressive, sophisticated and entirely workable for the user which matches the Manfrotto brand to a T.
With enhanced, appropriate features, an easy and satisfying user experience, and an improved, consistent load time, engagement with the app will rise and ultimately lead to an increase in purchases.
