How do users find products and retailers?

 

A competitive usability study helped us understand how people shop, not just with Superpages, but with the direct and indirect competition. We gained deep insight into users' behavior and needs which informed the evolution of the site.

 

Project: Superpages.com continuous improvement
Service: Competitive/comparative usability testing
Deliverables: Research Report

This case study outlines one of many Usability Testing studies I conducted for Verizon.

When Verizon owned Superpages.com back in 2004, they wanted to take the site to the next level by really getting into the heads of how users find retailers when they have a specific need. We decided to not only test Verizon's site, but see how it stacked up against the competition and find out how users were currently accomplishing their shopping goals.

The Product: Superpages.com was the companion website to the popular Verizon phone book, allowing users to find both home and business contact information.

The Method: We decided to test Superpages and three of its competitors, some of which were not direct competing websites-that is they didn't provide the same type of content and functionality. We interviewed the participants and customized the basic tasks with products and services the users were actually looking for. This helped to get deeper inside their real-life thinking on the topic. In each two-hour, one-on-one session, we tested all four sites using the same tasks.

The Results: We learned that users tend to shop for certain products online and feel comfortable purchasing them that way; for these products, who the retailer is doesn't matter a whole lot. For some products price is the determining factor. While for other products and services local retailers are important, including proximity, reputation/word of mouth, and reviews if available. We recommended Superpages implement some new features and functionality such as product reviews and more details on retailers and specific products, including price. We also recommended improvements to the way users navigate to specific product/service categories, as they tend to make their own little shortcuts which we could cater to. We found that many users were confusing advertisements with search results, and they didn't appreciate this confusion. So, we recommended distinguishing ads from real content better.

Since conducting this research, ratings and reviews has been implemented, and new sites have popped up which blur the line between product and retailer searching, allowing the user to go about each product search exactly the way they want to. And it just keeps getting better...

This study took place in 2004; Superpages is no longer owned by Verizon and has since redesigned its website, replacing the one referred to here.