About

Contact

Case Study: OPSGEAR Vest Builder

2011

TL;DR

OPSGEAR was a small, focused retail company that offered tactical, duty, and training gear for military, law enforcement, and recreational markets

One of OPSGEAR's many areas of expertise was the modular vest: a heavy-duty vest worn over uniforms and custom configured with pouches specific to the mission, area of operation, duty, or specialty of the wearer

The Vest Builder was conceived and launched as an interactive customization tool that allowed users to configure, save, and ultimately purchase a full vest system, and became one of the most-visited OPSGEAR sites and a powerful purchasing tool

Impact

Huge bump in sales, stronger customer engagement, according to survey results

The Vest Builder became one of the most-visited OPSGEAR sites

Context and Problem Analysis

OPSGEAR was a small Utah-based retail company that served the military, law enforcement, and military-simulation ("milsim") recreation communities. Across all of these diverse groups, one essential piece of gear is a modular duty vest: a heavy-duty vest worn over the uniform that is customized to each wearer with pouches and carriers to hold a variety of gear, from medical kits to weapon or ammunition pouches to radio, command, or navigation devices.

Although OPSGEAR stocked thousands of pouches for every conceivable purpose and in every conceivable duty color, sales in this area lagged somewhat when compared to our many competitors. It was clear we needed a big way to differentiate our offering.

The idea for the Vest Builder started off as the answer: an interactive website that would allow the user to select a vest, add pouches manually and customize their color and position, then add the entire package to the retail store site with a single click of an "Add to Cart" button.

Diagram showing the Vest Builder and pointing out its component features

Research and Insights

Working with the Marketing team, we discovered that the target user bases for the Vest Builder aligned neatly with the three major market segments for OPSGEAR as a whole. Understanding each market required an understanding of their core goals and needs, and so we started by documenting the main needs of the three personas:

Personas

Military

Values: speed and availability of product selection

May be assigned to multiple operations over career, will have different needs for each

Will need optimal vest configuration for each assignment or theater

Law Enforcement

Values: accuracy and product interoperability

May only make one or two long-term vest purchases over career

Vests may be fully dictated by department in configuration or color

Needs are less likely to vary over time, so purchases are carefully considered

MilSim

Values: playability from builder: ability to quickly see different colors / configurations and share and compare with teammates

Recreational users, inspired by military in popular culture to go to remote areas in groups and play competitive war games (e.g. airsoft or paintball)

More likely to make multiple purchases, different colors and configurations

Development and "Guerilla Testing"

Being in such a small company where everyone wore many hats, I was responsible for the entire implementation of the app (including product photography) with the exception of the initial UI concepts. The app was built in Adobe Flash using a simple XML file as the data store, and a separate admin console to make it so anyone could add or remove pouches.

Much of the testing for the Vest Builder happened at unexpected times during development. The CEO of OPSGEAR was himself ex-military, and the retail store attracted many friends of his across military and law enforcement. He would often grab whoever was in the store at the time (maybe a Salt Lake City police officer, or a buddy of his from the Air Force Security Forces) and haul them up to the media office to have them check out this new application we were working on.

The at-first unprompted feedback gave us some unexpected and extremely valuable insight into the needs of our target audience. After the first couple of surprise drop-ins, I insisted that anyone else in the store with a military or police background come up immediately to sit and try to configure a vest.

Insights and Iteration

Some of the most insightful feedback included off-the-cuff comments that made us rethink large parts of the interface. They all started out with "this is cool, but…"

"My department regulations say we can only wear black."

– Salt Lake City SWAT Officer

"I'm a field medic, how do I find the first aid and trauma kit pouches?"

– Utah National Guard Member

Which led directly to the addition of new features including:

Filtering vests and pouches by color

Filtering pouches by type

Creating pre-configured options when called for by organization

Emailing yourself a shopping list with purchase links

To further drive sales and meet business needs, we then worked closely with our e-commerce provider to develop a custom process to allow us to add an add-to-cart button, linking directly to the online store's shopping cart, with the user's chosen vest and pouches already added and ready for purchase, reducing friction even further.

Lessons Learned

As one of my first experiences designing and iterating on a user-focused product, some of my hardest won career lessons happened here. Among the most important are:

"I am not my target audience"

— UX axiom

Given my complete lack of military or law enforcement experience, I relied heavily on those early testers who gave candid, and sometimes blunt but necessary feedback that helped make a better product.

2a.

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy"

— Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"

— Mike Tyson (paraphrased)

Your best ideas and strongest designs won't succeed if not tested and validated with actual users. Be prepared to pivot fast when new or insightful feedback comes in.

This early work reinforced the value of continuous discovery and frequent testing. The feedback from this fast-fail approach helped solve usability issues and add valuable features before launch, and the Vest Builder quickly became one of our most popular products across our commerce and media operations.

— Mike Tyson (paraphrased)

I learned that my best ideas and strongest designs couldn't have succeed if not tested and validated with actual users. I had to learn to be prepared to pivot fast when new or insightful feedback comes in.