Share more with less effort

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 Overview

Sitejabber was puzzled as to why most reviewers only review once. To find out the root cause, we spoke to users to understand their motivation when writing reviews and we conducted usability testing to find issue with the existing review page. 

The research takeaways led to a review page redesign. The main redesign includes a progressive disclosure technique to reduce cognitive workload and an indicator to promote sharing more about their shopping experience.

Prototypes of these concepts were created for validation. 5/5 users interviewed with the desktop prototype said the new interaction design made the review easy to fill out and 4/5 users felt the new "review strength" indicator encouraged them to share more information.

Sitejabber is a review platform for consumers to learn about ecommerce businesses

ROLE

Lead Product Designer

SCOPE

UX Research, UI/UX, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Prototyping in 7 weeks
(Status: Delivered)

SOLUTION PREVIEW

Most reviewers write one review and don't come back, but why?

BACKGROUND

Based on data gathered from Google Analytics, only 7% of reviews are from repeated reviewers.

Because Sitejabber is an user-generated content (UGC) site, having reviewers consistently write reviews is crucial to the business's growth.  These reviews not only help generate traffic on the consumer side but also attract businesses to Sitejabber for analytics features and data insights.

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

• How might we improve the user experience on the "write a review" page to encourage reviewers to come back to write more reviews on other businesses?
  
  
• How might we help reviewers include information in their reviews that readers find useful?

CONSTRAINTS

 Scope limitations

Redesigning the review page was the scope proposed by the client. Although we found through research that fake reviews to be the underlying issue, shifting the project objective will extend the project timeline and need a budget increase. Ultimately, it was decided to proceed with exploring redesign options.

 Working with existing structure

Since there are invaluable data collected with the 5 rating categories (service, value, shipping, returns, quality), modifying this was out of question.

 Research

Key findings from users and companies in different industries

METHODS + KEY INSIGHTS

 Usability Testing

2 existing Sitejabber, 3 first time users were interviewed for feedback on the existing review page.  They were given two shopping experience scenarios (1 positive and 1 negative) and asked to openly discuss how they were fill out the form.

After synthesizing, the key usability issues were:

• Discoverability
  0/5 users noticed the "more about business" section but said section was useful after being prompted to expand the section.
  
  
• Comprehension
  0/5 users understood the intent of "which products did you end up using?" and were unclear about other questions asked in the "more about business" section.
  

 Comparative Analysis

Yelp is the top review platform for restaurants; Tripadvisor for travel destinations; Amazon for most products in the world. The team looked into these websites to find design patterns that contribute to their user experience:

• Yelp praises reviewers with toast messages as they type the review and offers option for users to hide recent reviews
  
  
• TripAdvisor tailors the questions to the specific business (hotels, restaurants, parks, etc.)
  
  
• Amazon's reviewers write mostly about what they purchased and share information on fit, quality, and body measurements for clothing items
  

 Design Patterns

Different design patterns were explored to determine how the page can be redesigned to improve the user experience.

• Sectioning review form because users think in batches and will help get through it faster
  
  
• Carousel and progressive disclosure are two common ways to simplify high volume of information
  
  
• A visual gauge can trigger the Zeigarnik Effect which encourages users to fill out empty form fields

 Solutions

Research-based design solutions

 A new layout to reduce user's cognitive load 

• rearrange the "more about business" section based on user's shopping experience
  
• group ratings and alike questions together
  
• provide common answers to questions
  

• clarify each category rating with helper text and a friendly, direct tone

 Revew strength feature as a motivator

• provide a visual cue for users to see progression of their review
• establish system for future rewards program integration
  

 Solution 1 of 2

Restructure layout for better experience

A consistent usability issue found during testing was that users did not notice the "more about business" section. 0/5 tested users saw this section.

However, after being prompted to the section, users commented that these additional ratings and questions  were easy to fill out and said it was "helpful for consumers" and "can provide a lot more info to help the business out".

Several ideas were explored using content in the section.

IDEA 1. Focus review on the products

WHY WE PIVOTED FROM THIS DESIGN

Client explained that SiteJabber is intended to be a business focused (customer service, shipping, etc.) review site rather than a product focused one.  

IDEA 2. Reduce 5 categories to 2

WHY WE PIVOTED FROM THIS DESIGN

SiteJabber has a lot of data around the 5 categories system and want to avoid restructuring the existing database.

IDEA 3. Explore carousel and progressive disclosure layout patterns

Carousel Pattern

Progressive Disclosure

USER FEEDBACK

Both designs were created as clickable prototypes and shown to users. 5/5 users preferred the progressive disclosure pattern over the carousel. Users stated that they preferred seeing all category ratings immediately vs needing to click in order to see the rest.

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FINAL DESIGN - LAYOUT

 Solution 2 of 2

Give users a reason to share more

The "Zeigarnik Effect" concept is explored in attempt to motivate users to share details on their experience with an online business.  If users consciously see something gauging their review's completeness, in theory, users are more motivated to complete it fully.

ITERATION 1. Circular strength meter with percentage

Why we pivoted from this design:

Numerical scale is not the best metric for reviews.

ITERATION 2. Replace percentage with descriptive copy

Why we pivoted from this design:

One user indicated she felt "judged" during concept validation.

ITERATION 3. Linear progress bar

Why this design is the winner:

The linear progress bar doesn't include text description, however it's clear as user progresses.

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FINAL DESIGN

The final strength meter includes supporting copy intermediately to further encourage users to add more information to their review.

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 Results

To verify the impact of the concepts, 10 users were invited to give feedback to the designs. 5 users were interviewed with 2 desktop prototypes and 5 with 2 mobile prototypes. Here are a summary of the results:  *mobile version results not included

DESIGN AREAS

 "More about business" category rating section

Create a review strength meter to motivate users

BEFORE

0/5 users clicked on the "more about business" section until being asked. All users were confused about categories & questions

N/A

AFTER*

5/5 users interviewed with desktop version liked the progressive layout and indicated the categories & questions were clear and useful

4/5 desktop users thought the review strength was encouraging while writing the review

 Final Work

PROTOTYPE (WEB)

SCREENS FOR MOBILE WEB

"Write a Review"

After Selecting Business

Sign In Modal

 Reflection

 Pinpointing which design improvements made most impact was a challenge

From the business perspective, knowing how easy a feature is to implement versus its impact is important because this information can be used to prioritize what needs to get done.

The final design proposed includes multiple improvements in copy, layout, and even adding a new concept (review strength). Although users feedback for the design was positive, it's unclear how the improvements rank based on impact.

Therefore, it will be more telling if we did more rounds of A/B testing comparing the original design versus the improvments individually.

 If I can do it again with a bigger budget and more time...

I would do extensive research around combating fake reviews. The reason is because I strongly believe the most one-time reviewers are fake reviewers. Therefore, I would find design patterns that increase friction for fakers (user or purchase verification) or spend time to develop designs that address this issue.

Secondly, recruiting existing SiteJabber reviewers was a challenge.  For this iteration, we were only able to recruit 2 existing SiteJabber reviewers. If we have more time and budget...

• Conduct more interviews with SiteJabber reviewers
  Reason: to dive deeper into why they aren't writing more reviews
  
  
• Interview users who read reviews on SiteJabber
  Reason: it is just as important to understand what readers want to read about

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