WEB / E-COMMERCE / RETAIL

Enhanced Search

Project Background

Vera Bradley launched their new e-commerce website on Shopify’s platform in the summer of 2020. We worked with an outside agency for the website’s design. A month after the site launched, we gathered any big / negative feedback from Customer Service and the Analytics team on user interactions.

The Search feature was the top issue for most users and lead to a decrease in customer satisfaction scores.

My Role: UX Researcher & UX direction

Goals

  • Reduce user friction when interacting with the feature

  • Ensure accessibility for users, especially those using a keyboard or a similar device

Key Team

  • Interaction Designer: Ali Petrizzi

  • Developer: Ryan Imel

  • Product Manager: Jimmy LaMaster

Research

Original Search Experience

Multiple user issues

  • Search overall was difficult to locate (on all devices)

  • Hovering caused unexpected actions and closing of Search without intending to do so

  • Overlapping of Navigation (depending on screen)

  • No clear way to clear the Search entry

  • Interaction of opening and Searching on Mobile was confusing

Experience and usability issues on Desktop

Experience and usability issues on Mobile

Empathy Map

An empathy map was created to understand the pains and frustrations with using the feature.

Updated Design

Wireframing

Interaction Designer, Ali Petrizzi, was the core designer for this project. I provided UX direction and research throughout the process. Below are some low fidelity wireframes that were created based off of user feedback and research.

Final (and live) Experience

  • On Mobile devices: moved the Search feature out of the Navigation

  • On Desktop: exposed the entire Search field and added the word Search to the button CTA to clearly communicate what it did

  • Added in an “X” to indicate how to clear a Search term

  • Added a “Cancel” link to Mobile to indicate how to get out of the Search experience

Results

From start to finish, the project took about 4 weeks to research, design and implement. Within a month’s time, Vera Bradley’s customer satisfaction score rose by more than 30%.