We performed user research and usability testing in collaboration with usertesting.com on the product detail pages of small and large appliances to analyze purchase related processes on both mobile and desktop. These tests helped us identify problems related to colors, button styles, iconography, typography, copy, user flows and information architecture but also gave us the opportunity to learn more about our user’s shopping behaviors, needs, wants and pain-points. Also, we took the opportunity to test an aspect of the design that we were having tension with our client about. At the end of this process, we gave recommendations on how to optimize the experience on desktop and mobile.
We kept these objectives in mind as we conducted the tests:
What influences purchase decisions on a product detail page of the website?
What stands out most to participants on the product detail page?
Identify which images or content on the product detail page is most helpful to participants in their purchase decision
Find out if participants understand the terminology of the features
Find out if users can find the product gallery and carousel
What product page performs better?
How easy is it to find a retail stores that carry these large appliances and identify any pain points in that process
Problems
After observing 12 participants performing our tests on the vacuum, washer and where to buy pages of mobile and desktop we gathered the following feedback
Things users missed
Availability of a carousel of product image
Product Page Carousel
Gallery button product page that reveals product images
Product Page CTA
Price of the product
Product Specific where to buy button versus the global one on the main navigation
Product Page CTA's
List of retailers on the where to buy pages
Where To Buy Retailer List
Things users didn’t understand
Feature naming and terminology and want to see the features in action
Features Section on Product Page
Things which caused trouble
Users are having trouble editing their address in the direction panel of the where to buy page
Where To Buy Search Field
What users wanted
Users want 360 view of the product images and interact with the control panel of the appliance
Product Hero Area
Users want to see where to locate the small appliances (not only purchase it online)
Users are skeptical about reviews in general: on one hand, negative UGR on three star product immediately raised concerns about the product and on the other hand, good UGR seem "made-up”. They would opt-out of the site because of bad reviews
Things users liked
Users easily found the gallery on the vacuum product page because it was visible next to the product image
Users are satisfied with the quality of information on the product pages
Recommendations
We designed a matrix that highlights our recommendations to the client:
Matrix 1
Matrix 2
Solutions
We made optimizations to the product detail page and proposed a couple of options
