Stakeholder Meeting & Analytics Assessment

Identifying Specific Issues within an Underperforming Flow

In meeting with our contacts at Les Schwab, we discovered that they were not seeing high levels of engagement with their tire shopping flow, resulting in few users scheduling appointments with products already selected. We recommended exploring this problem through a heuristic and analytics assessment to better define the scope of the issue.

I started by reviewing Google Analytics reports on pages within the tire shopping flow. Engagement metrics including page bounce rates and product card clickthrough rates clearly highlighted specific segments of the shopping flow that were particularly complicated for users. After watching FullStory screen recordings and reviewing heat maps of pages throughout the flow, I was able to narrow the scope of our investigation to three specific segments of the flow: Vehicle/Tire Size Entry, Product Listing Search, and Product Detail Pages.

Study Design

Gathering User Feedback on Friction in the Tire Shopping Flow

We determined that a usability test conducted on the tire shopping flow would generate the most useful insights regarding the segments of the flow to be investigated. A usability test would enable us to ask targeted questions about each segment of the flow while reviewing the specific behaviors users engaged in while searching for tires. We elected to include a short list of generative questions to get a sense of common purchase concerns and the experience level of each user with tires and vehicle maintenance as context for their particular behaviors.

Our usability study was designed primarily to address the following research questions:

• What vehicle information is a user likely to know when beginning to shop for tires?

• How does the Les Schwab tire shopping flow compare to user mental models?

• What user pain points currently exist within the Les Schwab tire shopping experience?

• How do users employ filters and comparisons during the tire shopping experience?

• What product information is most important to the user’s tire shopping experience?

• What features of the Les Schwab tire shopping experience do users find most valuable? Least valuable?

Data Analysis

Affinity Mapping to Assess Broad Trends

After completing a series of 10 usability tests, 5 on desktop and 5 on mobile devices (mirroring site traffic patterns), I transposed all of the user quotes and behavior notes into Miro to generate an affinity map. I used this map to assess the user tests holistically, discovering patterns in user behavior by segment of the flow, sentiment, and specific areas of opportunity uncovered.

Key Finding

Users Overwhelmed by Indistinguishable Search Results

Users expressed concerns about the ability to distinguish between products and select the best option for their vehicle. This concern was almost exclusively focused on the product listing page and the tire product cards it included.

Unmet Information Needs

How Users Want to Identify the Right Tire

• Validate Tire Quality with Social Proof

  • Users felt that social proof was missing from the tire search process. They wanted user reviews and ratings to provide quick heuristics for selecting tires to view and to provide contextually relevant information about how tires performed.

• Match Tire Features to Personal Driving Needs

  • Users did not find icons signifying tire handling details to clearly reflect their relationship to unique driving needs. Indications of snow tires were clear, but other signifiers such as for wet conditions and for general handling made users confused.

• Understand Tire Price & Quality Connection

  • Users could not determine the reason for a tire’s cost. Some tires that were featured cost less than non-featured tires. Some of the most expensive tires had the fewest icons. This removed the ability for users to rely on the “more expensive equals better quality” heuristic.

Competitive Analysis

Assessing Search Result Cards for Information & Interaction Patterns

Having learned that users struggled with narrowing down their options on the product search results page, we recommended that Les Schwab conduct a competitive analysis to investigate the information they provided users on product cards. Our hypothesis was that Les Schwab was not including the most relevant information to users and this contributed to their inability to confidently select a single tire for in-depth review.

The competitive analysis revealed these key differences between information included in Les Schwab tire product cards and the cards of their competitors:

• Brand Name of Tires

• Seasonality of Tires

• Cost for Four Tires

• Star Ratings

• Installation Availability

• Sale Indicator

We hypothesized that each of these features would provide differentiating information that would improve the user’s ability to select an individual tire for further exploration.

Design Preference Survey

Direct Comparison of Existing Design & Composite of Competitive Patterns

Key Findings

Preference for More Information, But Not All Information

After collecting 100 responses from individuals in the United States, we were able to synthesize our findings from qualitative and quantitative survey responses. Overall, users found the cost per four tires and cost per single tire to be the most useful information. Of the newly created and styled sections, users found star ratings and cost per four tires the most useful to help them choose whether to learn more about a tire.

Overall, users found the model name of the tire and the tire handling icons to be the least useful pieces of information included in the card. Of the newly added segments, users found installation availability to be the least useful information.

In a direct comparison between the cards, users preferred the new design due to the value of the additional information. Users that indicated a preference for the original card felt that it provided enough information to induce a next step and that it was less visually overwhelming.

Recommendations

Design Changes to Improve User Context for Evaluating Search Cards

The results of the design preference survey in conjunction with the usability test indicated that alterations to the design of the tire product cards would provide a more valuable set of information for users to evaluate products with. However, this would not address concerns about the tire handling icons, which stood out as a source of friction in both the usability study and design preference survey. With this in mind, we made the following recommendations:

• Include contextual definitions for tire handling icons within the product listing page. Alternatively, allow users to select which handling aspects are important to them in a pre-search filter that includes these contextual definitions.

  • This would reduce user friction created by not understanding the purpose of these icons and wanting to use performance as a differentiating factor in selecting a product.

• Prioritize the development of reviews and ratings elements within tire product cards and detail pages.

  • This would provide users social proof recognized as valuable in the usability study and design preference survey. Reviews would also provide performance information related to real-world users.

• Reduce the product card emphasis on credit pricing and include the cost of a set of four tires.

  • This would reduce the need for users to calculate the cost of tires in a quantity they are likely to purchase. Including this information would allow users to more quickly assess product options based on price.