Known Source Second Hand Fashion
Challenge
Known Source’s users are struggling to convert into buying customers due to challenges in finding the right items caused by ineffective search functionalities and difficult-to-use filters.
Solution
UX research gathering detailed data on customer preferences and behavior, through methods such as survey, user interviews, user journey mapping, etc. and a re-design of the search and filtering functionality, providing an interactive prototype to the company founders.
Result
Decreasing the task time at hand by almost 1 minute, improved site accessibility, and a significant increase in user satisfaction.
Problem Statement
Users struggle to convert into buying customers due to challenges in finding the right items caused by ineffective search functionalities and difficult-to-use filters.
Process
User Research
Methods: Survey, User Interviews, User Journey Mapping, User Persona
Survey Results
User Interviews & User Journey Mapping
According to our user journey maps of users testing out the existing Known Source Website, users had significant issues interacting with the search bar. They reported that the lack of autofill options and subsequent empty search results felt frustrating, and felt dissatisfied with the fact that despite there not being items that match the exact verbiage of what the user was looking for, that the website was not able to show closely-related items. Additionally, the original Known Source website shows users sold out items, in a high volume. The users reported a strong dislike and expressed their frustration with being able to see items they cannot purchase. Additionally, all of our interviewees pointed out that the amount of scrolling in the filtering menu, and their ‘messiness’ was confusing and time consuming, leading to many of our users not being able to narrow down to finding an item they would like to purchase, which is the ultimate goal of these features.
User Persona
Defining the Problem through User Stories
- As Sylvia, I want to only view items that are available for purchase because seeing sold out items is frustrating.
- As Sylvia, I want to know what the condition of the item I’m buying is, so that I can make an informed decision.
- As Sylvia, I want to be able to efficiently search for relevant products so that I can easily find a product I want to buy.
Accessibility
We met up with a digital accessibility specialist at NYU, to gain a better insight on what could be done to improve Known Source’s existing product. We learned that upon the UK's exit from the EU, there are no legal requirements dictating digital accessibility rules, as the UK's own rules are in development as we speak.Getting up to par baseline global accessibility standards would help Known Source in the long-term future, better equipping the website for scale. We also considered Known Source’s ability to implement these measures, and opted to recommend considerably easy-to-implement accessibility measures, addressing issues identified on Known Source’s website by an accessibility assessment tool, Axe Dev.
Alternative Text
Images should have an alternative text description that describes both the objects and the embedded text that the image contains, using the "alt" attribute. Known Source’s entire Press page contains screenshots of articles, with no alternative text, hindering both the accessibility, but also SEO benefits.
Zoom & Scale
The meta viewport tag should allow users to pinch-zoom at least double the standard scaling. The code on Known Source’s website currently disables this functionality.
Tab Visibility
Users should be able to navigate the website only using the tab key, currently they cannot see which field they are in. Currently, users have to press the ‘Tab’ key 23 times in order to be able to interact with the items, after searching. This could be tackled via skip links, that allow the users to use the tab key to skip to the main content of the website. This benefits not only users with permanent disabilities such as someone who is using a mouth stick to navigate the website, but also users with temporary/situational disabilities that could include a sprained wrist or a broken trackpad/mouse.
Design Process
The sketching phase consisted of an iterative process in which we made sure that our suggestions address the user’s frustrations as gathered in the research phase.
When it comes to the filtering mechanism, we wanted to address the scrolling confusion as well as improve accessibility of the filters by using a horizontal layout.
Wireframing and User Testing
After the sketching process we moved on to creating and testing a low-fidelity prototype. This prototype included the major changes we wanted to make, and provided a base for our first round of user testing and feedback. We addressed users’ concerns regarding the search functionalities, as well as re-ordered filters, and added a new filter, as well as item description addressing the user need to know the item condition. We also included the ability to hide sold out items.
Outcomes
