RL NAV | Mersedé Designs

GLOBAL NAVIGTION

Positioning the site navigation as a storytelling tool that reflects Ralph Lauren’s brand heritage and supports varied customer missions whether browsing across brands or shopping with specific intent.

Overview

As part of Ralph Lauren’s ongoing digital transformation, the FY26 Navigation Redesign initiative aimed to elevate the e-comm experience by rethinking the global site navigation. Although a redesign was completed in FY25, usability testing, stakeholder feedback metrics revealed persistent gaps ranging from discoverability issues to brand visibility and friction within the purchase journey.

Role:

UX/UI Designer. Close collaboration with our design team, business stakeholders, platform engineers and product managers

Duration:

On going

Tools:

Figma, Principle, Content Square, Adobe Analytics

Navigational Friction Points

While Ralph Lauren’s homepage excels in visual storytelling and intuitive navigation, it reveals friction points in editorial flow and immersive brand engagement. Compared to competitors like Gucci and Dior. The experience lacks seamless transitions between inspiration and commerce. Some friction highlights below:

Inconsistent content parity between desktop and mobile
Poor visibility of brand-level taxonomy and collections
Tedious toggling between categories (e.g., Polo vs. RRL)
Heavy taxonomy with limited space for inspiration content

Discovery Phase

Heuristic Audit & Journey Mapping

Camile: Brand Loyal Customer

Faces friction when switching between brand categories.
Lacks advanced filters like fabric or occasion
Needs quicker ways to compare items without adding everything to her wishlist.

Damon: Generic Customer

Experiences confusion with category structure.
Finds the navigation visually really dense and cluttered
confusing journey through cross-category sections

Competitor Landscape

We evaluated how our user experience compares with leading luxury brands by conducting unmoderated usability testing with 20 participants across the Gucci and Dior websites. The goal was to benchmark industry standards in navigation, layout, and overall shopping experience.

Key Takeaways

Storytelling is integral to navigation design, both brands blur the line between content and commerce.
Minimalist, clean nav structures paired with immersive visuals offer both usability and aspirational appeal.
Cross-category shopping (e.g., by collection, occasion, or edit) is prioritized over traditional siloed structures.
Both brands use navigation as an extension of brand experience, not just a utility.

Concepting Highlights

The redesigned navigation follows a 3-level taxonomy, strategically placing Our Brands at Level 1 to enhance visibility of core brand lines. This top-level entry expands into specific brands (Level 2), which lead to dedicated landing pages (Level 3). Other main categories like Men and Women adopt the same structure, guiding users from broad product types to more specific subcategories.

The design approach aimed to create a seamless and consistent user experience across all Ralph Lauren sub-brands, while preserving each brand’s distinct identity. It addressed the challenge of complex navigation by enabling users to easily discover and switch between sub-brands without confusion or friction.

To support a scalable and intuitive browsing experience, we implemented a three tier navigation system, thoughtfully structured to guide users from broad brand categories to more specific product or content offerings.

Navigation entry point

Experience Preview

Path Forward

Continue to validate concepts with users:

Conduct usability testing on the updated navigation flows, including multi-brand filters, entry point, and outfit-building paths, to gather feedback and refine interaction patterns.

Enhance Personalization with AI:

Leverage AI-driven insights to personalize navigation banners, content cards, and product recommendations based on user behavior, geolocation, purchase history, and seasonal patterns by adapting the navigation experience in real time, surfacing relevant brands, categories, or outfit suggestions tailored to each user’s preferences and context.

Improve Cross-Brand Experience:

Develop clear styling cues, product comparison tools, and outfit-level CTAs (e.g., View Entire Look) to reduce friction when mixing products across brands.

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