Amazon Checkout

Overview

Amazon is one of the world's largest online shopping websites, where you can purchase almost anything you can imagine. But let's face it; there is a lot of content that you never look at and only distracts you from what you truly care about.

Goal

To create a better and more personalized e-commerce experience for Amazon's checkout process.

My Role

I was the primary researcher on this project, responsible for all interviews and surveys. I also collaborated with the design lead on the components, wireframes, and final product layouts.

Timeline

3 weeks

Research

SWAT Analysis

First things first, we analyzed Amazon more in-depth to get a better understanding of what we were dealing with. We all used Amazon frequently, but we realized we would only bring our own biases if we didn’t look at the big picture together.

User Research

Since so many demographics use Amazon, we had to find a wide range of people to speak to to get data that we were comfortable with.

Interviews Conducted: 15
Survey Responses: 106
Survey age range: 19-68

We ended up doing three rounds of interviews. Each round gave us different insights and perspectives, so being able to build off those discoveries with more research was impactful. The three rounds conducted were:

1. Online shopping habits and expectations
2. The online purchasing experience and pain points
3. Online shopping with someone else in mind

Research Insight - Round 1

The biggest takeaway was that people only wanted to see the content applicable to them and what they were looking for.

What are the necessary fields of information that you want to see right away without having to search?

Research Insight - Round 2

People want simplicity. Unnecessary navigation or feeling like the customer was completing a task were common themes throughout my interviews.

When shopping online and adding a product to your cart, do you prefer a modal popup that keeps you on the item page or being taken off the page and directly to checkout?

Research Insight - Round 3

In our last round of research, we discovered that people couldn’t easily share purchases online with friends and family. At least at the time of doing this project, this ability wasn’t easily accessible, nor was it that robust, in that you could only share items with other Prime members who were on your account.

If you are shopping with someone else online, which option would you most likely choose to share your potential purchases?

Problem Statement

We believe that frequent users are overwhelmed with the amount of product information provided by Amazon and underwhelmed with it’s sharing functionalities. As Amazon continues to crowd product pages, users are beginning to be disillusioned and seeing the content as a marketing play. Additionally, users want to share their buying experience without the extra steps outside of Amazon (ex. Venmo, PayPal). With the use of configurable product information cards and a split the bill feature, Amazon Lite helps the user customize their Amazon experience and gives users the power to split their cart totals with other users.

Persona

Storyboard

Design

Wireframing

Final Designs

User Flow - Desktop

- Stay on one page

- Customize what you can and can't see

- Put the cart on every page

- See related items

- Add a "Quick Search" component to every page

- Share Cart feature

Added Feature - Quick Search

The bottom right component has a search feature that allows you to easily find and view other items without leaving the page.

Added Feature - Split Share

Within the cart, we added a “Share” feature that would allow you to send your current cart to someone else through email, text, or even sharing a URL. Before sending, you’re able to decided how much the cart will be split.

User Flow - Mobile

Future Considerations

Streamline Product Names

Find a way to improve the way product names are displayed. For example, simplify them overall in a more easily digestible way while still being able to distinguish one product from another.


Research opportunities around payment app integrations

Would integrating a payment app at checkout that can be saved to the user's account be useful? First, we'd determine whether or not people would find this valuable, how many Amazon users also actively use third-party payment apps, how much time this would save customers, etc.