Designing Color: The Kelly Moore Paints Palette Creator Experien
Catherine Hicks
Project Overview
Kelly-Moore Paints, a regional paint manufacturer, aimed to modernize and improve their existing online Palette Creator tool. The original tool was outdated, nearly unusable, and did not function on mobile devices.
The company wanted to upgrade the tool to make it responsive and user-friendly, catering to a broader audience, including individual consumers and interior designers.
Concerns
Technology On site was outdated
Project goal was to move site from Flash to HTML 5
How to make this work on Mobile
An app was scheduled to be built later but this needed to be responsive as team was on tight deadline that needed to work before client launched new paint collections
How to represent color
How do we represent something that can vary from screen to screen when its so vital to the company and at the scale we needed to show
Target Audience
Current Users: Homebuilders and Contractors
People were already hugely familiar in the construction trade with the product and its quality and were frequently the main users of the product
New users: Interior Designers
People who guide people in designing their spaces are a great target for a paint company - they're knowledgeable and often use paint in their jobs
New Users: Homeowners
They're often flying solo, painting a room on a whim on a Saturday afternoon and don't have the first idea of where to start in selecting colors. They're overwhelmed before they even get to work
Their Needs
How do I educate my clients on color theory and help them choose the best colors for them?
Color is overwhelming - I dont know where to start!
How do I pick colors that go well together?
How do I make collaboration seamless and easy for my clients and not overwhelm them?
How can I collaborate with someone else to choose colors?
Constraints
It needed to mimic the basic functionality of the existing site
Textual content should have a single spot in all parts of the flow
The users should be able to select colors from existing colors and collections and by exploration
Four colors to be the maximum you could put into any palette
Key Features
Palette Creation & Management
Users could explore the full range of Kelly-Moore paint colors, create multiple palettes, and share them easily.
Save & Share Functionality
Users could save their palettes locally in the first phase, with plans to enable online saving in future updates. Sharing options were integrated, allowing users to email palettes directly from the tool.
User-Friendly Interface
The interface was simplified to mimic the experience of selecting paint chips in-store, with large, clickable color swatches, clear navigation, and intuitive palette management features.
Collaboration Features
The tool was designed to facilitate collaboration between interior designers and their clients, a key target audience for Kelly-Moore
Outcome and Impact
The Palette Creator tool was successfully relaunched, providing Kelly-Moore with a modern, responsive platform that met their business goals. The tool saw increased engagement from both individual consumers and interior designers. The project contributed to a 10%+ sales increase for Kelly-Moore in the following two years, with a significant increase in traffic to their web properties.
Learnings
This project highlighted the challenges of modernizing an outdated tool while balancing tight deadlines and resource constraints. It also reinforced the importance of responsive design and user-centered development in creating digital tools that meet the needs of both the client and end-users.
Conclusion
The Kelly-Moore Palette Creator project showcases the ability to transform a nearly unusable tool into a responsive, user-friendly application. The success of the project not only improved user engagement but also positioned Kelly-Moore as a forward-thinking company in the competitive paint industry.
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Posted Dec 17, 2024
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