While at creative agency Cheil, I made major changes to the product finder on Samsung.com. Changes were rolled out site-wide across all European markets.
Problem
Users found it hard to filter products and found the pages difficult to scan.
Solution
We changed the filter from the top of the page to the side, changed the products to a a more aesthetic and minimalist card UI, improved information hierarchy, and condensed the visual design.
The Challenge
Samsung.com sells products ranging from refrigerators to phone accessories to TVs. Although the site sections are slightly different, we discovered several pain points across each user journey:
The filter was not on the side
It was hard to use the filter
The pages were hard to scan
Too much information was displayed on the product pages.
Competitive Analysis: Heuristic Review
As part of an Accessories project we evaluated the full buying journey for three different companies: Samsung, Apple, and Google.
To perform a competitive analysis, we judged each site against the same set of heuristics, defined below.
Efficiency, Consistency, Effort, Flexibility, Generalisation, Clarity, Feedback.
Pages were judged on a three point scale:
1 = poor
2 = OK
3 = good.
In a nutshell, Samsung scored relatively poorly, especially on effort, generalisation and clarity.
User Testing
We conducted user testing sessions on different product areas of the site, including Refrigeration, Accessories, and Tablets. This case study combines the findings of several smaller projects, that led to the overall site redesign.
In all around 45 people were tested on mobile and desktop versions of the site over the course of about four months.
We conducted affinity mapping after each round of tests to reveal major pain points.
Key Finding: The Filter
There was substantial annoyance with the filter.
Many users missed it entirely to begin with.
The filter, unlike most sites, was available in a drop down from the top.
This allowed the products to fill more of the page but meant it was much harder for users to actually filter products.
The video below shows the original filter:
Key Finding: Product Cards
During tasks, users did not click CTAs.
They often tried to click the title, which was not clickable on the site.
Users were reluctant to ‘add to cart’ from the product page.
Initial Wireframes
The initial wireframes moved the filter to the side of the page, and stripped away almost everything, including CTAs.
Final Version
Modifications continued to be made, based on further testing
CTAs added back in
Filter moved to side
Logic of filter improved over several iterations
Titles made clickable
A more minimal and aesthetic visual design
Results
Changes were rolled out site-wide across all of Samsung Europe.
Next Steps
I also worked on more radical changes to the product finder, and prototyped several options to personalise the results, and display information differently.
Flipping Cards
One proposal was to have cards that would ‘flip’ and show extra information on the back.
User research showed that some users navigated to the Product Page as quickly as possible. Other users would stay on the Product Finder page for long periods of time.
This interaction would allow users to quickly compare products without ever leaving the product finder, which might help with their eventual purchase.
This option was not developed further, but I always thought it was a cool interaction, and I enjoyed learning how to make it.
Interactive Cards
I took the design even further and allowed a greater degree of customisation on the product card itself. This allowed the user to quickly see multiple options from the product finder , without even having click into the product page. This more radical design was not adopted by Samsung.