2008
2017
2026
ReadingGlasses.com
ReadingGlasses.com is a specialty retailer that started in 1986, secured its domain in 1996, and launched e-commerce in 2000—well before most of its category. My work sits inside that longer arc: translating an in-store, service-first experience into a digital channel customers can trust.
It’s a mature e-commerce business in a category where the purchase decision is highly personal, size‑dependent, and visually driven—yet the product itself carries almost no emotional aspiration for most buyers. The work here was less about making reading glasses feel luxurious and more about making the experience of buying them feel clear, trustworthy, and as close to frictionless as possible.
The challenge is what every long-running e-commerce site faces: the experience accumulates debt. Navigation decisions made in 2010 calcify. Product communication written for one customer profile serves three. Campaign creative drifts from the brand with every seasonal refresh. The deeper challenge—at 18 years in—is sustaining conversion and quality across a full multi‑channel ecosystem without letting any one channel drift away from a coherent whole.
Over nearly four decades the business has expanded from a single retail concept into a mix of e-commerce, showroom retail, fulfillment, and prescription eyewear—while maintaining a focus on ease, service, and selection. That evolution is reflected in the digital experience: early adoption of online shopping, a major redesign in 2017, a Shopify replatform in 2022, and newer layers like virtual try-on and expanded Rx offerings.
My role since 2008 has been to steward that experience over time: keeping navigation, product communication, and campaign systems aligned with the business as it grows, rather than treating each redesign or platform change as a disconnected project.
Architecture
I restructured the site around the customer's primary decision mode: browsing by strength, style, or face shape. Navigation was rebuilt to reflect how real buyers shop, not how the product catalog was organized. The result was a faster path from landing to the right product, with fewer abandoned sessions at the filter level and a clearer sense of “I’ve found the right pair” before add‑to‑cart.
Content Systems
Product communication was redesigned to be precise and honest—consistent lighting and angles, descriptions that answer the real questions, and a review system integrated early in the purchase flow to build trust before commitment. Multi‑channel consistency meant that email and SMS campaigns were built from the same visual system as the site, so a promotional offer felt like it came from the same brand, not a separate department.
Campaign Direction
Seasonal campaigns were treated as brand moments, not just sales events. Photography, copy hierarchy, and promotional architecture were designed to work together. During the 2017 redesign, we partnered with Saputo Design to lead brand and campaign creative while I focused on e-commerce UX and the underlying content and navigation systems, so every campaign touchpoint still felt like the same experience customers met on the site.
- The experience has been refined continuously—not rebuilt arbitrarily—because the underlying structure was built to flex, keeping improvements focused on real customer and business needs instead of novelty.
- Multi-channel campaign system spanning Shopify, Instagram, email, and SMS — built from a single visual source of truth.
- Navigation architecture rebuilt around actual customer decision modes, reducing friction in the path to purchase.
- Platform and feature changes—like the Shopify replatform and virtual try-on launch—were layered onto a stable architecture, so each new capability improved the experience instead of resetting it.