Before
After
Case Study - Blinkee.com
user research for e-commerce
Client: Blinkee.com
Case Study Duration: 2 weeks
Works independently
My Role: UX and UI (Double Diamond)
Tools Used:
- Trello
- Optimal Workshop
- app.diagrams.net
- Sketch
Blinkee.com - Overview
Magic Matt’s Brilliant Blinkys provides exciting glow in the dark toys, flashing jewelry, blinking pins, flashy and accessories for many occasions. They always on the lookout for the best glowing party supplies, fiber optic toys, and glow lights.
In addition they specialize in battery operated lights toys, and their selection is unmatched, but because they constantly improve their sources and suppliers they also have some of the cheapest glow sticks and glow in the dark toys around.
Understanding the Challenge
Binkee website 's sells to individuals and companies. Gradually online sales began to fall. Therefore, Blinkee now needs to create a way that attracts the user to make more purchases online.
First Analysis - Blinkee.com
What I learned navigating on the site?
Users may have a misinterpretation of the products that the site sells thinking that it is about selling products for a particular event.
It is a company that sells gifts and supplies for many occasions and even to renowned companies.
The site has several local layers that can make the user uninterested when browsing
Target & Heuristic Analysis
Next I decided to do a heuristic analysis so I can find a satisfactory solution to that specific problem. Browsing and analyzing the site I could see my target users are actually a “Careful Critic”. What matters to the them is quality.
Then I use the Heuristic Evaluation to measure the usability and identify what Heuristic Violation is most necessary to focus.
What the results of this analysis?
I identified that the e-commerce site had a lack of efficiency
I choose my competitive analysis on tasks based on the target users and Heuristic Evaluation
Competitive Analysis & Comparative Analysis
Comparative Analysis
I analyzed my client and 3 different competitive companies in five critical tasks: buying, product’s description, payment options, quantity buying, and contact information.
Oriental Trading Flashing Blinking Lights Windy City Novelties
What I learned from this analysis?
Buying products are easier on Oriental Trading, in 2 clicks you already add to the shop cart
Product’s description is also something that Oriental Trading show in more details in less clicks
Windy City Novelties has the better and variety options for payment
Flashing Blinking Lights shows easier to buy per quantity with discounts
All three competitive companies have possibility to call them using Facetime or starting your call phone.
2. Competitive Analysis
Comparatives companies used for the process of buying products:
Walmart Target
The buying process of these companies is much more complex than the competitive ones. There are too many steps to complete the entire purchase.
Pain Point
The users are careful critics who buy for many occasions (business, birthday parties, holidays). They are detailed, but also are quick to perform tasks. Users need an efficient way to select products so they can have an agile and quality purchase process.
Hypothesis
By reducing the number of clicks and giving more instantly information, the users will have an enjoyable and fast navigation and will complete their purchase feeling satisfied.
Discovering the New Architecture
Using the open card sort, I was able to identify:
In some categories users saw in different aspect
Others categories were the same
Few were similar or were in the company navigation layers.
After this analysis I used hybrid card sort. The categories given were based on the analysis’ results of the open card sort, the competitive companies’ research and the Blinkee official website. Based in the users needs and all the researches so far, I learned:
The architecture could be different: less complicate and less clicks
The architecture should have more information and product’s description
How is going to be the
Future User Flow
Enter Blinkee.com
Buy a Christmas Hat
Select “Holidays” or Promotion link on the home page. If not find go to the search bar
Select “Christmas”
Add quantity and send to the cart
Check out process
Ok, but what to do with all these information?
Backing to my persona, who is a careful critic and needs to buy products quickly and efficiently, I decided to reduce the number of layers from four to a maximum of two. In addition we created filters as a bridge smoothing the users navigation.
Greyscale Prototype and Usability Testing
The purpose of this test was to find out how user interacts with the new Blinkee.com navigation and architecture of the prototype created. This test helped us define pain points we may have missed on our initial research and could resolve in the early stages of ideation.
This is what I learned on Usability testing
Home icon was not located in an ideal location so users were lost back to the main page.
Users were missing the button Icon and back to the items.
Users were missing the information about payment methods used to review your cart section.
The process was very good .The interaction was easy for users and they could complete the purchase with success.
The proposal for changing the logo
During the Hi-Fi process I spent hours researching and trying to see the best way to use colors. This process was very difficult for me because the company’s logo is :
Very full of colors and not pleasant to see.
Heavy presentation
There is no credibility in what you see
It was in this concern that I realized that Blinkee urgently needed to change it and thus a new, lighter and more youthful logo emerged. The new logo is:
More cheerful as well as the purpose of the products
The colors used are the impression of more credibility, creativity and confidence.
The Progress
The New Navigation
Future Actions
The next steps for Blinkee.com will be:
Decrease the amount of global navigation to a maximum of 8. My propose is adding 1 more layer in some of the navigations.
Increase global navigation font size
Add the shipping address to the guest checkout session
Create other payment method pages
Usability testing