REI: COMPARISON FEATURE TESTING & REDESIGN
OLD DESIGN
REI had a deep product assortment and the products could be redundant across several brands; comparing the merchandise could be difficult for users. This was complicated by the fact that the comparison tools was not working.
PROBLEM: There were customer complaints about how hard the comparison tool was to use. We created a benchmark test with four tasks for retail shoppers and tested in store for two days.
Complete report on REI Comparison Tool (PDF)
SOLUTIONS: I moderated several tests and eventually led the redesign of the tool for the site.
What we discovered was that the tool was too flexible. It allowed users to compare items from different categories (essentially apples to oranges) and users could add so many items that they could not all be shown in the UI.
Among our recommendations:
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Limit number of items to compare at a time
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Allow users to edit the items in the comparison
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Allow users to compare only "like" products
RESULTS: Customer complaints dropped by 50% and many of the feature attributes that we pioneered have become standard practice in the competitive landscape.
NEW DESIGN
