The challenges 🏔️

As a product mired in “a sea of sameness,” iRobot needed a way to stand out from competitor robots. After analysis, I noticed the problem was twofold.

The external issue was that the site content lacked the emotional intelligence to connect with potential customers in a way that would continue to resonate with them as they chose between nearly identical products.

The internal issue was that the website content had become a “sacred cow.” iRobot.com had only two contributors: product marketing and product sales, meaning users were only exposed to product or promotion-driven messaging.

The solutions 💡

I knew storytelling content features based on user personas and segmentation were exactly what iRobot needed to connect with its customers. Competitor research in the consumer electronics category confirmed this hypothesis and inspired my idea for the new “Shop by lifestyle” features. This feature would be backed by user research and be fertile ground for connecting with segments meaningfully in a tone that played to their emotional and aspirational needs.

While the feature solved the customer-facing content issue, I would need to attach more quantifiable value to the project to get leadership buy-in. As the primary touchpoint with our SEO agency, I was frequently advised of the need for more SEO-rich content pages and the implementation of user-generated content on the site. Making these pages a use case for both gave me the leadership green light needed to begin prototyping.

I started by mapping a user journey through the website and wireframing the pages based on examples I found during my initial discovery. I then recruited team members from Creative Services (who I knew wanted to work on something more creative and less formulaic) to translate my vision into visually rich working Figma files.

Beyond the right words and images, I understood the right audience would be crucial. So, I analyzed and synthesized the most recent segmentation from user research to extract the most viable lifestyle categories that fit the project scope.

After this, I brainstormed with my team to confirm my findings and ideate on final names and categories. I also brought in the paid media team to align their audiences to our categories so we could effectively land their audiences on the corresponding iRobot pages.

For content delivery, my final step was an in-depth voice and tone analysis of the GoPro “Shop by activity” page messaging vs their product page messaging. My analysis included the four dimensions of tone, keyword use, and elements of needs. By identifying patterns of differences between the two, I was able to clearly demonstrate the voice and tone needs for iRobot.com product vs. brand messaging.

The result ✅

I compiled all of my findings into a comprehensive Confluence page to make a case for the continuation of the project. With space for UGC, SEO-rich content, brand messaging, and potent product differentiators, my team’s proposal convinced even the deepest skeptics that this project was worth the resource investment. In a time of reduced spending, especially for UX initiatives, it was enthusiastically added to the Q2 roadmap and even received funding for development. As net new content areas, the initiative delicately side-stepped interdepartmental politics and made an undeniable case for sacrificing previously “sacred cows.”

Tools⬇️	Methods⬇️	Collaborations⬇️
Figma	Wireframing	Product Marketing
Confluence	Information architecture	Creative Services
Segmentation	Journey mapping	SEO Partners
User Generated Content	Competitor research	Leadership
SEO Analytics	Keyword tone analysis	Paid Media