Cabela's | Retail VR Experience

Cabela’s: Engaging and educating shoppers

CREATIVE BRIEF

Role: Lead User Experience Designer

Audience: Outdoor Enthusiasts, Families

Needs: Wayfinding signage and products features.

From Cabela’s: This should empower shoppers to feel confident about their purchases, even if the product isn’t on the floor.

Screen Shot 2021-10-02 at 5.12.30 PM.png — **CONCEPT CREATION**

1 week of brainstorming & sketching

Screen Shot 2021-10-02 at 5.13.13 PM.png

Dimensional Innovations partnered with Cabela’s—a large retail store focused on hunting, fishing, camping, and outdoor gear—for the opening of their two newest locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. With the new locations having significantly smaller square footage, Cabela’s needed a retail-focused solution that would still be high impact, all without taking up valuable floor real-estate. DI outfitted each store with three interactive “Trailhead” kiosks—one Trailhead per section: Camping, Hunting, and Fishing—and three Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to pair with the kiosks. In an effort to better assist every customer, these Trailheads would enable every store associate to be an expert on products and outdoor activities.

Spatial DEsign

Designing monitor surrounds, and selecting materials

Each trailhead needed to serve as a form of wayfinding identifying each section of the store, and the services offered in those areas. After working on several material samples, we decided on a reclaimed wood front stained with colors and routing out text.

**Trail head UX/UI design**

Content development and Wireframes

Each of the trailheads had a unique look and feel, but the same UI navigation.

The expanded menu reveals a digital bragboard, a 360º experience, and interactive map. There was also variation between the main screen menu, and the menu to navigate between sections.

The digital brag board aggregated Cabela's hashtags, and allowed the client to curate brag boards to match the content per Trailhead.

An interactive map featured allowed visitors to find and sort recreational activity locations in the area.

Because all of the 360º interactives were available on VR headsets, a button on the UI could be used to signal a store attendant to come over help the visitor get fitted in headset, and supervise for safety.

Cross platform
Custom 360º Content

Polishing UI/UX designs, 360 shoot creative direction & development collaboration

The Fishing Trailhead has the largest amount of unique content. Customers are able to virtually go on a fishing trip with the 2017 Angler of the Year, Brandon Palaniuk, and watch him catch a 10+ lbs. bass. Video footage also includes graphic overlays that feed information like where on the lake they are, the speed of the boat, and more. Customers can explore his boat via 360-degree footage and learn more about the equipment he uses through digital hotspots. This Trailhead also includes “Pro-tips” for both beginners and advanced fishermen. DI shot all footage of Palaniuk’s boat and also accompanied him on his fishing trip to capture footage of him in action.

The Camping Trailhead enables customers to sort, filter, and select tents available at Cabela’s. Once selected, customers are then able to view 360-degree photos of the inside of the tent, giving them a sense of what it’s like to be inside the tent. Hotspots appear on each of the products inside the tent; when clicked, more information about the product appears.

DI assembled each of the tents, staged the product inside, and shot all of the 360-footage for the Trailhead. More than 30 tents were erected and shot.

Hunting Game

The Hunting Trailhead shows the insides of different hunting blinds in 360-degree. Inside each blind, a rifle and a shotgun are staged with hotspots on each. Select a hotspot and the Trailhead opens a hunting game that can be played out of the blind. Customers have the option to “hunt” deer or turkey. At the end of the game, players are given a score showing how they did.

DI staged and shot all of the footage for the 360-degree viewing of the hunting blinds. Also, all of the visuals and development for the hunting came was done by the DI team.