Uncovering User Behaviors

To understand the Amazon mobile shopping experience, behaviors, and pain points of our shoppers, our team set forth in conducting research using various UX methods. Our goal was to collect these insights to then scope down to three behaviors to design widgets.

We had a procedural approach where each method was informed by the previous one.

As a team, we completed:

What Behaviors and Pain Points Exist in the Mobile Shopping Space?

Key Insights

Decision Factors
Brand recognition, reviews, social media marketing, Q&A, and user-generated content are important factors when comparing products online to make purchase decisions.

Fatigue and Insufficient Product Information
Users reported frustrations around scrolling fatigue and insufficient relevant product descriptions. 

Cognitive Overload
On the contrary, there is a lot of cognitive overload on the PDP page due to the multitude of options, irrelevant filters, and irrelevant categories.

Information Search
Customers like Amelia spend the most time searching for information to see what product fits them best.

Comparison is difficult
Comparing products on mobile is difficult due to the small screen. There is a comparison widget on the Amazon mobile app, but the values they compare are irrelevant to the shopper’s needs.

Customer Loyalty
A positive shopping experience warrants customers to make repeat purchases. Positive could mean quick, easy, and informative.

High Interactivity
High interactivity is credited with a desire to return to that online store and increase their use time. Amelia would want to return to the app if there was a lot to do but was well-balanced.

What Part of the Mobile Shopping Experience Should We Focus On?

Key Insights

The biggest insight from doing this activity was our finding that we should focus on the "looking" and "deciding" stages of the experience as we moved forward with research. I encouraged doing this experience map workshop for the younger students on my team to take a step back from the research to see it from a high level and reflect on what we had thus far. After reflecting, we believed we would have the most impact designing widgets during these stages of the experience.

From doing the experience map, I learned our team needed to dig deeper into the pain points during these two sections.

What Specific Behaviors and Pain Points Exist For Our Users?

Key Insights

Shoppers don't use Amazon to browse for products
Shoppers use outside sources to learn about a product and decide if they want it or not. They will use social media, Youtube, and articles to discover products, to name a few sources.
"Amazon is just a tool to get a product quickly.' - Interviewee

Reviews can heavily influence purchase decisions
Female interviewees reported relying on social factors to make a purchase decision. The ability to hear from real people around the world assists with decision-making.

Filters aren't used much, if at all
Filters are not used because they tend to show irrelevant values or are too cumbersome to use. Additionally, it can feel like it could hide potential products.

Subscribe and Save isn't used or interacted with because it requires commitment and uncertainty
Subscribe and Save requires shoppers to guess when they think they will need a product. Shoppers find it easier to just reorder things when needed, not rely on a scheduled delivery and credit charge, which can be forgotten.

Advertisements are not trusted nor interacted with
When seeing advertisements on the mobile app, shoppers reported distrust; they would rather get advertised to by content creators than the actual brand.

With the additional collection of behaviors gathered from interviews, the team wanted to learn more about the perceptions of the Product Display Page on the mobile app. We wanted to hear if there was a specific section we could "widgetize" to help them with their shopping.

What Features of the Amazon Mobile App Do Shoppers Value?

Key Insights

This was a very, very, very ugly process. The intention was to do card sorting and understand if the hierarchy on the Product Display Page was as usable, but our testers morphed it into something more useful. We provided them with the sections we found on each page and they talked us through how they felt and used those sections.

We found some expected behaviors like our testers explaining price is the most important thing for them to consider. However, most of them all reported the same thing when talking about what they specifically look for when buying products:

Product ingredients (avoiding and/or seeking)

Hair and skin benefits from the product

Compatibility between the shopper's hair and skin + product

They reiterated the comparison widget within the app isn't useful because the first item (typically the desired item) is hidden as they horizontally scrolled. It is a part of the Product Display page they scroll past every single time.

Focused Behaviors

After collecting a number of behaviors, it was time to narrow to 3 specific behaviors our shoppers faced when shopping for hair and skincare on the Amazon mobile app. After referencing a template our sponsor gave us and considering we needed to design widgets that would increase P&G beauty product purchases, increase product discovery, reduce pain points, and increase customer loyalty on the Amazon mobile app, the following three behaviors seemed to align best:

Sketching, Mocking Up, and Testing Potential Solutions

Dividing our Team

Since the team had three behaviors to design and only ~5 weeks left to sketch, test, and deliver these widgets, I split the team in half to tackle these behaviors concurrently. I was on the comparison widget team, tackling the issue of how shoppers ignore that widget entirely.

Although I was on the comparison team, I managed all facets to ensure we were moving at an appropriate pace.

How might we compare hair and skincare products in a relevant and accessible way?

Collaborative Comparison Widget

In the comparison team, we individually sketched out what the new comparison widget could look like along with the new interactions. However, we ran into a problem...

It was really difficult to show the moving pieces and interactions we were sketching; we were also getting even more lost when each person would explain their vision. So, we huddled together and collaboratively sketched on a whiteboard. This helped our understanding tremendously as we were discussing each step together.

After we finished sketching together, I determined we should move into wireframes or, at most, low fidelity mockups, as we already agreed sketching moving pieces was not helpful. I encouraged both teams to use Whimsical as our tool of choice to limit ourselves to lower fidelity work.

I am only elaborating on my own approach to address the comparison widget as this version was completely my own.

Version 1 | Static Comparision with Scrollable Wheel

Testing for Usability

How might we compare hair and skincare products in a relevant and accessible way?

I told each team they needed to test their high fidelity prototypes for usability issues now that we had functional interactions (as seen in the Final Widgets section). I chose to showcase only my testing results as I had the most impact in this area. Since the semester was ending, I came up with a list of suggested design changes for our sponsor if she chose to move forward with my concept.

Version 1 | Static Comparision with Scrollable Wheel