About VikingViking is an e-commerce company and a leading expert in office supplies and workspace solutions, operating in 8 European countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany.
OverviewPlease note: this is only a summary of the project. More detailed information and visuals are left out due to copyright restrictions. Feel free to reach out if you want to know more!
Viking's checkout process relied entirely on manual address entry, which frequently led to input errors. The goal was to develop an address validation tool, powered by an external API, to allow customers to quickly search and select a verified address with minimal manual typing.
How might we seamlessly integrate an address validation tool to guarantee accurate delivery details, reduce customer input effort, and minimize expensive delivery failures?
UX/UI Designer (My role), Product Owner, Developers, Scrum team
Discover & DefineThis phase focused on understanding the complexities of global address data and how to best utilize the external API to create a seamless, localized experience.
I initiated extensive cross-cultural research into the address formats, required data fields, and cultural entry habits for all eight European countries where the company operates. This was critical for understanding the significant format variability (e.g., postal code structures, field dependencies) and cultural habits across markets.
To translate cultural findings into technical requirements, I directly tested the API's real-time address verification tool. This testing was used to determine the fastest and most reliable input combination for address validation in each country, including how the API handles exceptional or incomplete addresses. The research led to defining optimal input patterns for key markets (UK, IE, NL, DE) and mapping the remaining countries to these patterns to reduce complexity.
The extensive research defined the primary challenge which would be vital for the next phase.
Generate & IdeateThe insights from research and API testing served as the starting point for creating the design concepts.
I began by exploring design concepts in Figma, defining several key heuristics for the address validation tool. I collaborated with a developer to build a Proof of Concept (PoC). This rapid prototyping allowed us to test the API's real-time performance and confirm the feasibility.
Design & ExperimentWith the pattern successfully validated through the Proof of Concept (PoC), this phase focused on finalizing the design, ensuring smooth integration into the customer journey, and documenting the new address validation system for long-term scalability.
The PoC provided the functional blueprint, allowing me to focus on refining the final user interface. I polished the design to ensure it was visually seamless and consistent, adapting the new address pattern for every point of the customer journey, including the "My Account" section and the critical checkout process.
Crucially, I created extensive documentation detailing the heuristics of the validation pattern. This proactive documentation ensured design intent was preserved, provided a single source of truth for the development team, and guaranteed the pattern could be easily re-used.
Working closely with the product team in an agile environment, I served as the design authority for the development of the delivery address validation feature. I provided the design requirements and reviewed finished development parts to ensure fidelity to the design and compliance with the established heuristics.
The collaboration was a two-way street; the developers provided essential feedback on coding best-practices and feasibility constraints, which led to minor design adjustments. After several months of development, the delivery address validation pattern was officially live in all eight markets, immediately addressing the root cause of faulty deliveries.
The successful roll out of the delivery address validation enabled highly efficient expansion to other parts of the site. As part of account creation and the checkout process, billing addresses are essential and also benefit from being validated. Since the address validation pattern and its documentation were already defined, applying the validation to billing addresses became a straightforward and low-risk project.
The existence of the pattern's source of truth drastically cut down on design and development time for this expansion. Within a few more months, the billing address section of the customer journey was also covered by the validated, standardized pattern.
Summary & ConclusionThis project successfully transformed a manual, error-prone process into a foundation for customer trust and data integrity. I designed and launched an adaptive validation pattern that intelligently served customers across eight markets by focusing on local postal conventions.
The immediate launch achieved the goal of reducing faulty deliveries and reinforcing customer confidence. Furthermore, the strategic creation of the foundational, reusable infrastructure and its documentation proved its worth during the expansion to billing addresses, demonstrating strong long-term ROI and securing a scalable foundation for future checkout improvements.
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