Work/PurpleCase study · 2019–2020

A mattress store that asks how you sleep

Purple, through Goods & Services: research in homes and showrooms, four buying mindsets and one journey across store and site, then a Sleep Profile that follows the customer from an Instagram story to the showroom to checkout, and the redesign of purple.com around it.

Six phone screens of the Find your Purple quiz: how many in your bed, what type of sleeper, what shape are you, are you in pain, your Sleep Profile is 80% complete, Side Sleeper profile
Client
Purple Innovation
Agency
Goods & Services, Atlanta
Role
Experience design lead
Dates
October 2019 – 2020
Output
Research and personas, experience map, Sleep Profile concept and tested prototype, dynamic home and product pages, navigation, cart, checkout, account and store locator
01The problem

Purple had outgrown the bed‑in‑a‑box. It had showrooms, retail partners and a product line that ran from pillows to power bases, and a website that still sold one mattress to everyone the same way.

We started where the decision is made: in people’s homes and in mattress stores. Interviews with recent buyers, visits to Purple’s own showrooms, Sleep Number, department stores and mall kiosks, and a population study that sorted shoppers by what they were really trying to solve. The findings were consistent. Comfort and feel are the measure of a mattress, nobody feels better after hours of online research, and most people still want to lie on the thing before they pay for it.

  1. Four mindsets, not one customer. Sleep in Style (34.6% of the study), No Compromise Comfort (27%), Just Need the Best Bed I Can Get (27%) and Pain Relief (11.5%), each with its own research intensity, budget and trigger.
  2. The journey crosses channels. Online research, a showroom visit, back online to buy: five distinct paths, and the site knew nothing about the store.
  3. Products come in systems. Mattress, grid height, base, sheets and pillows have to be configured together, on a phone, without a salesperson.
02Three decisions
  1. 1

    Build the store around a Sleep Profile, not a catalogue.

    A quiz under a minute long, how many in your bed, how you sleep, your shape, whether you are in pain, becomes a profile the whole site reads from. “Your Sleeping Style” sits in the global navigation, the home page greets you by time of day and reorders itself to your mindset, and the product page leads with the proof points that matter to a side sleeper in pain rather than a generic feature list.

    Turned down: a comparison chart. It answers the question people are worst at asking.

  2. 2

    One profile in every channel.

    The profile is created wherever the customer is, on purple.com, from an Instagram story, or on a tablet in the showroom, and handed across by SMS and a QR code. Whichever of the five paths a shopper takes, the store and the site are working from the same answers, and the signature in‑store moments were concepted against the same journey.

    Turned down: a loyalty login as the key. Nobody creates an account to buy a mattress once.

  3. 3

    Test the idea before designing the system.

    The quiz, profile and a dynamic product page went into an InVision prototype and in front of users in December 2019, with tasks written for each mindset. What survived became the 2020 system: global navigation, mattress category, two‑column product pages, cart and checkout, account and store locator, in desktop and mobile.

    Turned down: redesigning page by page from the home page down. The profile had to be proven first or every page would be built on it for nothing.

03The work
Six photos from store visits: a Purple showroom with a tablet kiosk, a Sleep Number storefront, a mall mattress kiosk, rows of mattresses, a specification wall
In the stores. Purple showrooms, Sleep Number, department-store mattress floors and mall kiosks, photographed and compared on the same visit.
Four behavioral mindset profiles with need-state bubble diagrams: Pain Relief, No Compromise Comfort, Just Need the Best Bed I Can Get, Sleep in Style
Four mindsets. Each profile with its share of the study, its need‑state cluster, shopping behaviour, research intensity, the Purple product that fits, and the implication for the site.
Life journey of mattress ownership from crib to retirement, with price band, number of mattresses and age range at each stage
A lifetime of mattresses. Crib to college to partnership to pain relief: when people buy, how many, and what they will spend.
The full experience map: pre-shop, online shop, in-store shop, post shop and returns, with stages, activities, touchpoints and sentiment
The experience map. Pre‑shop, online, in store, post‑purchase and returns, with activities, touchpoints, sentiment and the customers’ own words at each stage.
Two journey map details: the online shop stages from Discover What's New to Pay and Arrange, and the post-shop stages from Wait for It to Own
Up close. The online shop, Discover What’s New to Pay & Arrange, and the post‑purchase weeks where the mattress is decided on for real.
Five paths to purchase: online only, in-store first then buys online, online first then buys in store, online first visits in store buys online, in-store only; each passes through Create Sleep Profile and SMS Profile QR
Five paths, one profile. Every route to a Purple passes through a Sleep Profile and the SMS or QR hand‑off that carries it between the site and the store.
The dynamic home page in three columns: Good morning greeting and Elevated Comfort hero, The Grid, What's Your Sleeping Style, promise bar and customer stories
The dynamic home. Good morning. A home page that greets by time of day, leads with The Grid, and asks the question the whole store is built on.
The dynamic home page on a phone
On the phone.
purple.com · product page prototype
The two‑column product page, in motion. Configuration stays put on the right while the proof points, bundles, reviews and specs scroll on the left; “Discover your Sleeping Style” lives in the nav.
The full dynamic product page in four columns: hero and configuration, proof points, specs, reviews and FAQ, try it in store, footer
Top to bottom. Engineered for every body, true comfort, sleeps cool, the no‑pressure promise, specs, reviews, questions, and where to try one.
Mobile product page screens from the design review: configuration with size and comfort selectors, complete sleep solution, reviews with a 4.4 rating, and filters
Mobile first. Size and comfort selection, the complete sleep solution, reviews and filters, from the first PDP review.
Desktop product page modules: Engineered for every body, True comfort with the grid cutaway, No-Pressure peace of mind, reviews
Desktop modules. Proof points as a rhythm of image and claim, with the grid cut open.
Three desktop product page layouts side by side, versions 1, 2 and 3
Three ways to open. Versions one, two and three of the desktop product page, taken into review together.
Two overlays: Motion Isolating sleep-style explainer with back and side sleeper illustrations, and What size bed should I get with a room planner
Answering the real questions. Overlays for how you sleep and what size fits the room, instead of a spec table.
Five phone screens from the prototype user test: Find your Purple quiz, an Instagram story asking What's Your Sleep Style, the Sleep Profile at 80%, and two order confirmation screens
Tested, December 2019. The InVision prototype as users saw it: the quiz, the Instagram entry point, the profile, and the order on its way.
Four global navigation mega-menu panels: mattresses, pillows, bases and sleep accessories, with promotional tiles
Global navigation, 2020. One mega‑menu per product family, with the promotion and the product shot in the same frame.
Three desktop cart and checkout pages: cart with bundle suggestions, checkout, order confirmation
Cart and checkout. Bundle suggestions in the cart, a single‑page checkout, and a confirmation that reads like a welcome.
Store locator desktop pages with map, filters and store detail
Store locator. Because for most shoppers the site’s job is to get them to a bed they can lie on.
Account pages: sign in, create account, My Purple with order history, and profile
Account. Sign in, orders, and the sleep profile kept in one place.
Four mobile screens: delivery info and address entry in checkout, My Purple account menu, order history
The same system on a phone. Checkout and account, March 2020.
04Where it landed
  • ResearchInterviews, store visits and a population study, delivered as a research report, four behavioral mindset profiles and a full experience map in October and November 2019
  • ConceptThe Sleep Profile: a sub‑minute quiz, a profile that carries across site and store by SMS and QR, and a home page and product page that read from it, prototyped and tested with users in December 2019
  • SystemThe 2020 purple.com redesign in desktop and mobile: global navigation, mattress category, product pages, cart and checkout, account and store locator
05My role

I led experience design on the Purple account at Goods & Services from October 2019: the research synthesis, mindsets and experience map, the Sleep Profile concept, the dynamic home and product pages, the prototype and user test, and the 2020 page system. Goods & Services’ strategy, visual design and client teams carried the brand and the relationship; Purple’s marketing and e‑commerce teams were in every review.