Kindle & Fire Tablets Launch in Japan

Visual/UX Design

A lineup of Amazon Kindle devices showcasing different screens. The first device on the left displays a Japanese text page. The remaining devices show various media content, including manga, music, and video apps, highlighting the diverse functionality of the Kindle tablets.
5th Generation of Kindle and Fire Tablets in 2012 - 2013

My Role

As a visual designer on the Japanese and global marketing team, I was responsible for creating visual assets for Amazon devices and their accessories. I collaborated with stakeholders from other teams, including books, music, apps, and videos, to choose content for the device screens. Additionally, I selected a Japanese font for marketing localization and provided design files and feedback to both the internal design team and outside agencies.

Challenges

Speed and Workload

  • The device prices and the accompanying copy were not finalized until the last minute, as the marketing strategy had to be discussed right before the device launch to the Japanese market. ⏱
  • Needed a lot of different image sizes for a main visual for various platforms, including Amazon, mobile apps, affiliate programs and other media. 😵

Design for Japanese Market

  • What design approaches were effective in the Japanese market? What else was necessary beyond just translating the US visual assets? 🇯🇵

What I Did

Visual assets for the launch

Examples of marketing visual assets. I created over a hundred images at the launch.

Content for Fire Tablet home screen

Collaborated with books, music, apps, and videos team to decide which content was appealing and the best available for the devices.

Two Amazon Fire tablets displaying a variety of content on their screens, including manga, music, and apps. Surrounding the tablets are icons of popular apps such as Angry Birds, Minecraft, and Hello Kitty, along with covers of various books, music albums, and movies.

Fonts for Japan

Worked with the US design team to determine if the selected font aligned with its marketing guidelines, look, and feel.

Morisawa ShinGo Family sample.

Practices of the paring fonts

Note: Decrease the Japanese font size or increase the English font size to combine it naturally as Brandon Grotesque's x-hight is a quite short.

Banner image with only the English font for the Kindle Fire HDX, highlighting it as a powerhouse tablet built for work and play. The ad features two tablets: one displaying the movie Iron Man 3 and the other showing various apps. The text mentions the prices starting at $229 for the 7-inch model and $379 for the 8.9-inch model.

US and the other markets - Brandon Grotesque

Japanese banner, using the US font and Shingo font for the Kindle Fire HDX, emphasizing its high-resolution display and 2.2 GHz ultra-fast processor. The image features two tablets displaying manga and various apps, with a price starting at ¥24,800.

Japan- Brandon Grotesque＆ShiGo

Illustration, Graphic Icons

Kindle Photo Contest Process

The illustration of the Kindle Photo Contest Process with five steps: taking a photo, uploading it to Amazon, announcing the finalists, voting, and deciding the grand prize winner.

Extended Warranty Illustration

Comparison Icon Ideas

Comparison icon ideas, featuring different hand gestures interacting with various Kindle devices.

Approaches Taken to Overcome Challenges

Welcome Email Redesign

Building the welcome email with the previous template was complex, requiring extra images to be localized and the text to be limited due to space constraints. The redesign resulted in a much simpler, streamlined email, reducing email production time from 5 hours to less than 1 hour by simplifying image localization, and saving over 350 hours in a year across all launches.

Prototype for Gateway asset editor

This is a prototype I built with Fabric.js in 2013 (before Adobe Express) to explore and develop my idea of a tool that enables both non-designers and designers to generate, edit, or localize template images for marketing, thereby saving production time.

Improving Fire Tablets' Detail Pages in Japan

Objective: To boost conversion rates for Fire tablets in Japan by improving their detail pages through a series of UX experiments.

Collaboration: Worked closely with a product manager, site merchandiser, and the UX team in the US, utilizing the research data conducted in Japan and the US.

Experiments Conducted:

  • Family Stripe Navigation
    The research team identified that having two similar 9-inch tablets with different prices in the Family Stripe caused customer confusion. The A/B test also found that including device images significantly outperformed the text-only version.
  • Product Detail Pages
    ‍    Simplified layout by removing unnecessary content to focus on key product information.
  • ‍Content Order
    Tested different sequences to find the most engaging and conversion-friendly order.
The Family Stripe navigation displaying a selection of Fire tablet models, including the NEW Fire HD at ¥15,800, NEW Fire HDX at ¥24,800, and two Fire HDX 8.9 models with prices ¥39,800 and ¥20,800 respectively.

The original Family Stripe that had two similar devices with different prices.

The Family Stripe navigation without device images listing different Kindle and Fire tablet models, including Paperwhite, Paperwhite 3G, Fire HD, Fire HD 8.9, Fire HDX, and Fire HDX 8.9, along with their respective prices.

The Family Stripe without device images did not perform well for its conversion.

The Family Stripe navigation, showing three Fire tablet models with different prices and images. From left to right: NEW Fire HD priced at ¥15,800, NEW Fire HDX priced at ¥24,800, and NEW Fire HDX 8.9 priced at ¥39,800.

Deleted the older 9-inch device from the Family Stripe to provide clearer options.

a part of the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 detail page screenshot.

Fire Tablet Detail Page in 2013

Results: Removing one older model from the Family Stripe increased conversion rates by 2%. Including device images in the Family Stripe improved customer clarity and selection.

Impact: I helped the traditionally low-performing Japanese detail page see a lift in conversion rates. Unfortunately, due to my departure from the team, I could not see all the test results and their final impact on the shopping experience.

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