I joined ChatID as the first in-house designer, and this page showcases some of the most significant stages of our main product over the five years we worked on iterating, simplifying, and scaling its use.
Making it Better
In 2013, as an initial project, the team shared the existing experience with me, which was a proof of concept at the time. The task: Make it better. The exploration aimed to address user experience concerns, preserve the shopping flow, and allow users to ask questions anytime. This led to the creation of The Overlay, which soon transformed into Chatbar.
Chatbar 2
During this phase, ChatID accelerated its growth as a company, and substantial shifts occurred in our approach to the market, product offerings, and design philosophy. This progress helped us introduce new concepts and features to our product portfolio faster. For example, we introduced User Feedback, which allowed brands to understand the performance of their chat agents and refine their chat operations. We also launched Multi-user Chat, enabling agents to hand off chatters to other agents or transfer the conversation to a different brand. In addition, mobile support brought a seamless chat experience to mobile web users, and we achieved a WCAG AA conformance level for our overall experience.
Additionally, our team constantly worked on optimizing the discoverability and visibility of chat CTAs across all our retail partners. This effort led to creating CTAs in various shapes beyond the product detail page, such as SMS, ChatAds, and the beginning of our Chat Agent Console.
Chatbar Component System
As the product was deployed across numerous retailers, adapting the look and feel of our retail partners became necessary. We developed an internal system to streamline design operations and ensure our front end was configurable, allowing for a more seamless and cohesive shopper experience across our retail partners.
Chatbar 3
Once we joined Salsify, our work with Chatbar continued, focusing on expanding, enhancing, and simplifying the experience. Conceptually, we envisioned Chatbar evolving into an experience capable of proactively surfacing content to users visiting the product detail page.
