Approach

Psychological studies suggest that people feel positive emotions and feelings of joy by rounded corners, bright colors, and soft textures, whereas they feel anxious and threatened by sharp edges and rigid structures. See Ingrid Fetell Lee’s TED Talk Where Joy Hides and How to Find It from 2018 around this concept.

At the time of this project, ADT’s brand guidelines and design systems used rigid corners and dull, drab color schemes that weren’t inviting. My hypothesis was that by redesigning the website using the principles of Kawaii, which means cute in Japanese, we could increase conversion by putting users at ease and evoking feelings of trust. 

I asked the web design team to iterate on our design system by rounding corners, softening the color palette, using brighter textures and photography, and creating more white space.

We then A/B tested the new design system on several high-volume pages on the site, and observed changes to conversion rate.

Role

• Director of Product Design 

• Initiated and led the strategic vision of the project

• Oversaw  UX and UI team and owned communication with the executive team

Outcomes & Impact

• Sessions-to-opportunities conversation rate saw a 30% lift on the Smart Home page in a live A/B test. 

• We scaled the principles of Kawaiization sitewide to the adt.com design system and observed an overall uptick in conversation rate.

The gallery below shows the evolution of the Kawaiization throughout the ADT design system, Axis, starting with the original design without Kawaiization