M&C SAATCHI

ux lead / de beers / forevermark 2013

luxury ecommerce experience deisgn

Context

Forevermark, a De Beers diamond brand, commissioned M&C Saatchi to design a modular, responsive, content-managed global e-commerce platform.

The challenge was to integrate brand-level storytelling (“The Promise”) with structured product discovery across collections, occasions and gift journeys.

Problem

The core UX tension was between:

  • Emotional brand narrative (“Beautiful, Rare, Responsibly Sourced”)

  • Structured product taxonomy (rings, settings, occasions, collections)

  • Flexible filtering across intersecting metadata categories.

The existing architecture risked:

  • Over-prioritising brand messaging at the expense of product clarity

  • Confusion between semantic categories (e.g. Gift vs Occasion vs Collection)

  • Poor discoverability across one-to-many relationships in product metadata.

Users approach diamond purchasing through different mental models:

  • Occasion-led (Engagement, Anniversary)

  • Gift-led (For Her, Just Because)

  • Collection-led

  • Product-type-led

The system needed to support all without privileging a single hierarchy.

My Role

As Lead UX / IA Consultant, I:

  • Developed the Promise-to-Product “sliding scale” journey model

  • Designed a structured taxonomy mapping brand promise to product metadata

  • Defined navigation logic across homepage, collection, product and finder journeys

  • Created IA schematics and modular content frameworks

  • Modelled persona-driven journeys and assisted search flows

  • Proposed CRM-driven contextual surfacing of product within promise-led environments.

Approach

1. Promise → Product Architecture

I introduced a progressive model where:

• Top-level pages emphasised brand “Promise”
• Collection and product pages gradually increased product emphasis
• Finder journeys dynamically shifted grid balance from narrative to product visibility forevermark-ux-05

This allowed brand storytelling without sacrificing transactional clarity.

2. Taxonomy & Semantic Clarity

I restructured semantic groupings to:

• Elevate “Gift” to a top-level category
• Differentiate product type from occasion-based categorisation
• Clarify metadata relationships (one-to-one and one-to-many) forevermark-ux-05

The key principle was:

Organise for mental models, not internal database logic.

3. Promise Matrix

Developed a “Promise Matrix” framework to dynamically contextualise product pages with relevant brand messaging based on taxonomy and clickstream behaviour forevermark-ux-05

This created a system where:

Brand narrative adapted intelligently to user pathway.

4. Persona & Scenario Mapping

Defined structured persona journeys (e.g. Engagement buyer, Anniversary self-purchaser, Gift purchaser) and aligned UX pathways accordingly forevermark-ux-05

Integrated:

  • Assisted search

  • Image-based product discovery

  • Lightbox sharing functionality.

Outcome

  • Delivered a scalable, modular IA framework for global luxury commerce

  • Balanced brand storytelling with structured product discoverability

  • Improved clarity across complex product metadata relationships

  • Provided foundation for CRM-driven contextualisation and personalisation

  • Supported global brand positioning within a usable transactional environment.

BUILDING THE DIAMOND RING FINDER

PROTYPING: HYBRID SITEMAP + JOURNEYS

ALIGNING UX AND CREATIVE

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