BestChoice
A new service to help people shop and compare the commodity
#Service Design
#0-1 Design
#Product Design
OVERVIEW
BACKGROUND｜company
This case study is an school-enterprise cooperation project. Tencent is one of the biggest technology company, but the market share of its Sogou search engine is not very high, and they also want to create some features to attract more users. In the process of understanding, we targeted the shopping-oriented tools.
PROBLEM
Currently, there are so many commoditys, and the information related to each product is complex, which increases the number of factors affecting the decision and the difficulty of the user's memory choice. (when they want to buy a product, they tend to make repeated comparisons; when they see their favorite product on one platform, they need to go to another platform to check again.)
As a result...
How might we help people make more efficient and easily decisions in online shopping experience？
SOLUTION
We designed a web-based plug-in, which is a tool that can better allow people to compare the same type of goods clearly; it helps users to rationally analyze and compare recorded product information; also, it intelligently identify and summarize the factors that affect the purchase, and assist in reducing the user's working memory and thinking burden.
This plugin assists users in searching and comparing products in Sogou browser and also helps to attract more users to Sogou browser.
KEY FEATURE
Extract the items
in the video/photo
Identifying products recommended by bloggers in videos shared on social media and placing them in your own wish list.
Identifying product name
Helps you skip the step of having to search again.
Bestchoice can identify the product you highlight and provide its key information.
Based on the search
When you search for a product, it can inspire some relevant recommendations.
When you search for a certain category of products, it can provide other people's wishlists for your reference.
My library（VS pages）
it assists in filtering out the items you need most.
First, only essential product info is shown, filtered roughly. If only 3 or fewer remain, more details are revealed for comparison.
PROCESS
0-1 Design：From finding requirements to getting the right solution
RESEARCH
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
We first looked into the market to examine whether existing products can help people better make choice in online shopping.
We found that:
-
There are a lot of price comparison plug-ins in Google chrome, but they basically just stop at getting coupons and rebates.
-
There are also some review apps like Guiderank, which only have some default selection libraries and lists, so users can't independently compare products according to your needs.
-
If we only rely on social media recommendations, people will not feel convinced enough to buy the product recommended by the blogger just by watching a video, and they need to use more videos to make a conclusion, which will take a lot of time.
Therefore, we need a tool to help us compare and select the most suitable products for users at the moment from a wide range of products.
SURVEY
I conducted the first study to investigate whether this need truly exists, and to exclude the possibility of false needs. And to understand what people pay attention to when choosing goods and what factors influence their final decision.
95 questionnaires were collected
We found that:
-
People do confused by various products when shopping online and spend a lot of time in making choices.
-
When making a choice, people are very concerned about the positive and negative reviews and whether the product is cost-effective.
-
People like to buy something that wins in comparison to their counterparts, but it's also extremely time-consuming because reading a lot of comments can cost much time.
-
Usually, people will collect multidimensional information about a product before placing an order. No one will place an order just because someone recommends it.
-
83% agreed that they should improve the efficiency of online shopping
In-depth Interview
In order to have a deeper understanding of the difficulties users have encountered in shopping and the culprits that have caused these difficulties, I conducted user interviews and invited our developers to participate in affinity mapping sessions with us so that we can later brainstorm solutions based on our findings.
I interviewed a total of 10 people
We find that people are now generally doing comparisons of the same type of goods in their minds, switching between different pages and platforms, and it's very easy to get confused. This can cause people to go through the same one content over and over again because they forgot something, or their focus is now different than it was before.
Many people want a comprehensive consumer advisor to reduce the negative experience of obsession and self-loathing.
User Journey
We combed through the online shopping process taken by the interviewees so that we could look for points of opportunity where we could make changes. This chart illustrates the current state and process of how people choose goods, as well as their needs and dissatisfactions.
Insight from research
Therefore, we need a tool to help us compare and select the most suitable products for users at the moment from a wide range of products.
Overall Design Goal
Making a tool that allows people to compare the same type of goods more intuitively and clearly, and maximizing the convenience for users to choose while retaining their existing buying habits.
IDEATION
Brainstorming
Based on that we collected from user research, we brainstorm ideas and prioritize those most relevant to the design goals.
Eventually, we settled on the following core functionalities:
ITERATIONS
Sketches & Wireframes
We quickly organized and visualized the ideas we gather. The sketches were incomplete, but they provided a good starting point for further development and discussion.
We designed the following wireframes and presented a prototype to our prospective users for their feedback.
User Feedback
Users agree that our tool helps them make faster choices in their shopping and most like the function to recognize items in videos.
Affirmative from users：
Several suggestions brought by users：
1. They would like for our tool to display image hints in the search bar when searching for a scene, not just text.
2. They would like the function to look back at recently viewed items because they often want to find a product they previously viewed but can't find it.
3. products scanned from video should have the added feature of being able to be added to the comparison list, rather than just being able to compare one product scanned from video.
FINAL DESIGN
Welcome to Bestchoice and start a new shopping experience ~
Video Scanning
Search-based
Text-based
Selection Library
FEEDBACK
Reflection & Future steeps
Our project was highly appreciated by Tencent teachers and was added to their rolemap. We also gained a lot. We learned how to balance business goals and design goals so that design can actually make a difference in the marketplace. The design should be done to arrive at an "integrated optimal" rather than a "design optimal" solution.
After that, we want to continue this project. These function points designed so far are still a bit trivial, and we are ready to better unify these functions into a more complete and powerful tool.