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Zendesk help centre theming

One bespoke Zendesk help centre theme that works across N Brown's brands, Simply Be, JD Williams, Jacamo, and the heritage brands Fashion World and Ambrose Wilson.

N Brown runs several large fashion brands, each with its own look, but the FAQ and customer service help centres needed to be built, run and improved as one product.

Client
N Brown
Role
UX designer
Brands
N Brown brands
JD Williams help centre built on the shared theme: pink Continue Shopping button, search over a hero photo, and the Customer Service Hub FAQ cards.

My role

UX designer in N Brown's UX department, over about two years. I designed and built the themes in Zendesk's own HTML and CSS.

Approach

  1. Research led by both customers and the business: what customers came to the help centre to do, and what the service teams needed from it.
  2. One cohesive design with a shared structure: a search-first hero, a Customer Service Hub and FAQ journeys for placing an order, orders already placed, and managing an account.
  3. Brand themes on top of that structure, so each site keeps its own logo, colours, type and imagery without a separate build.
  4. Accessibility built in, including colour themes for call centre colleagues with colour vision deficiency, since the help centre is also a working tool for the people answering calls.
  5. Built bespoke with Zendesk HTML and CSS, then iterated as the brands and service teams used it.

One theme, five brands

One shared structure, themed for each brand's logo, colours, type and imagery.

Simply Be
Fashion for curvy women.
JD Williams
Fashion and home for women.
Jacamo
Menswear in extended sizes.
Heritage brands
Fashion World and Ambrose Wilson.

Outcome

A single multi-site theme running across N Brown's brands. Zendesk praised it as the best use of multi-site theming they had seen from a large corporate business.

Research, iteration and delivery

Researched
Customer-led and business-led. What customers came to the help centre to do, where they got stuck, and what the business and its service teams needed, across several brands with very different audiences.
Iterated
Built one shared structure first, then layered each brand's theme over it and refined both as the brands used it. Accessibility ran through every round, including dedicated colour themes for call centre colleagues with colour vision deficiency.
Delivered
A bespoke multi-site Zendesk theme, built in Zendesk HTML and CSS, running across Simply Be, JD Williams, Jacamo, Fashion World and Ambrose Wilson, used by customers and by the call centres. Zendesk praised it as the best use of their multi-site theming by a large corporate.
In short
One design system for customer service, many brands on top, and accessible for the people who use it all day.

Get in touch

Looking for a product and UX/UI designer for a contract role? I'd like to hear about it.

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