Amazon Website Redesign
Improving the online shopping experience in order to bring in new customers and keep existing ones.
Overview
Amazon Website
Role: UI & UX Designer
Tools: Figma, Maze, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Duration: 90 hours within 4 Weeks
About Amazon
Amazon is known to be the world’s leading online retailer due to revolutionizing the shopping experience for customers, and providing a platform for retailers and consumers. It is a one-stop shop with its diverse product offerings, wide range of services, and convenience.
Objective
Modernize and update the overall look and feel of the website while maintaining brand consistency in order to improve the shopping experience, keep customers engaged, and promote better usability. With such a large customer base that heavily relies on the brand to fulfill their needs, creating a platform with a seamless user experience is extremely important in keeping returning customers. Unfortunately, the current Amazon site is overwhelming and difficult to navigate, leaving customers frustrated and leading to a sub-par user experience.
Diagnosing The Problem
Evaluating the existing site
Amazon is a platform for consumers to make purchases and for businesses to sell their products. However, even though people heavily rely on Amazon, it falls short in the overall shopping experience. This is due to the fact that Amazon aims to be the most customer-centric company and tries to meet the needs of its customers, resulting in a subpar shopping experience that is a hassle.
Dissecting the Amazon website
As an avid Amazon user myself, I took on the role of investigating the site in order to fully understand and scope out all the issues. My findings were as follows:
Lack of personalization makes it difficult to navigate the site
Locating something takes time (unless the user is very familiar with the Amazon interface)
Unnecessary links and wasted features take up space, resulting in a cluttered homepage
Interface lacks feels non-cohesive, and lacks structure and visual emphasis
So how can we improve the shopping experience for customers (and even business owners)?
Amazon forces users into the same stacked grid layout without taking into account any of their individual preferences. They should have the ability to personalize their dashboard, and to specify their interests as well as what they don’t want to see.
Presenting My Hypothesis
Creating a solution
A customization feature would be offered to users so that the website can be personalized to them and their needs, leading to a much more enjoyable shopping experience in every aspect.
Users would be able to omit any sections, hyperlinks and categories that are irrelevant to them, and prioritize what they do want to see.
Highlighting User Pain Points
Surveying users
User Surveys
To test my theory and hypothesis, I kickstarted my user research by conducting user surveys. I surveyed 100 Amazon users (82 existing and 18 who were new to the platform) ranging from college students to parents to senior citizens. Based on the results, a majority of the users found Amazon to be sufficient for what they needed but found themselves only using certain features.
User Interviews
Once I conducted the surveys, I followed up with 10 of the participants to get a better understanding of what exactly would improve the user experience. I also wanted to test my hypothesis that adding a customization feature would make for a better experience.
The main purpose of the interviews and of the surveys was to see how much users rely on Amazon, get a glimpse into their user journey and how they interact with the website, and understand how they navigate the site when making a purchase.
User Research
Creating the personas
Based on the user interviews and to better understand the target audience and the users’ needs, three personas were created based on popular Amazon use cases I found through surveys I conducted along with user interviews. The personas embodied the common user’s needs and goals, and pinpointed the main pain points and any problem areas. This allowed me to focus on the aspects of the Amazon website that needed top priority for redesign and improvement.
Mapping Out The User Journey
Existing & New Task Flows
I wanted to fully understand how users complete a task so I broke down the website, mapped out the user journey, and clearly defined what steps were needed to be taken for users to reach their end goal. I made sure to differentiate between existing and new users since accessing the feature would differ between the two. I created the new task flow by simplifying the existing task flow and removing any frustration. The goal of the improved task flow is to offer dashboard customization which leads to an improved user experience.
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Based on the site map and user personas, I jumped into creating high-fidelity wireframes that were consistent with the current UI of the Amazon site. I started off by creating wireframes for new customers who were being onboarded for the first time.
I then proceeded to create wireframes for existing customers. Existing customers would be able to customize their dashboard by going into “Account Settings” and being onboarded from there.
Revisions
I then conducted a few rounds of user testing through Maze, a tool for usability testing. My main goal was to see if the new customization feature added value for users, and if it was intuitive and easy to understand for both new and existing users.
Users would be tested on these specific tasks:
Whether existing users were aware of and able to find the customization feature
Understanding the onboarding
Finding all elements of the customization process helpful
Users were successful for the most part but felt that the interface still needed the following changes.
Adding a Notification in the form of a Pop-Up Screen
Existing users weren’t made aware that the feature to customize their dashboard was an option or where to locate it. Having a pop-up screen not only informs and notifies the user instantly but also gives the user the opportunity to access it through the click of a CTA.
Side Navigation Bar - Customization
Users who choose the “Side Navigation Bar” option for where their interests should appear are forced to have the interests they selected beforehand grouped into one section. They aren’t able to fully customize what categories they want to keep and dismiss, thus making the customization process counterintuitive. Giving users the option to check off what they want to keep and what they want to hide allows for a much improved user experience.
Wins & Challenges
Conclusion
Successes
Although there were several things I had failed to consider in my first iteration, I resolved these issues quickly through tweaking my previous designs and gaining user input through user research methods. I came up with simple but effective solutions to the problems users faced. Getting feedback from user interviews and conducting extensive research were essential in the success of the final designs.
So, what I could I improve moving forward?
Going forward, I would:
Expand the customization. Not only should users be able to customize their interests but the homepage still feels cluttered. Users should have the option to organize the layout of their homepage and how the information is displayed.
Since certain groups on the homepage correspond with the user’s interests (as a result of the user’s personalized algorithm), give an option to “show” or “hide/dismiss” these groups.
Break down the customization process even more for users and include an in-depth walkthrough of the steps to get rid of any confusion they may face. Include a sneak peak of what users can expect if they choose “x” option.
Spend more time conducting even more research to gain more insight and tackle all problem areas.
What did I take away from this?
This project was a first for me when it came to conducting user interviews and using research to validate my findings. With user research, I was able to gain insight into what problem users were facing and create the second round of iterations with ease. Consequently, I was able to work more efficiently while creating a solution that promoted better usability and benefitted the user.