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Amazon College Rewards
Website Redesign & Added Feature
Reimagining Amazon's College Student Shop to improve the experience and create more value.
Roles
Danielle Justilien
Project Manager, Research, IA, Visual Design, Prototyping
Halima Bushra
Research, IA, Testing
Daseul Kim
Research, Testing
Deliverables
User Research Plan, Wireframes, Style Guide, Prototype
Tools
Figma, Miro, Google Forms
Time
4 Weeks
Project Background
Our team was tasked with the challenge of finding an area of Amazon that could use improvements to the user experience. Our initial thoughts drew us to college shopping department due to the timing of back to school season and the increase in online shopping due to the effects of COVID-19.
The purpose of the Off to College department is to provide guided shopping for college students back-to-school essentials. While exploring, we discovered that the college student shop was difficult to find and the navigation appeared to be complex.
Before: Off to College Page
Our Design Process
Empathize
Competitive Analysis
Secondary Research
General Survey
SUS Survey
Define
Persona
User Journey
Problem Statement
User Stories
User Flow
Ideate
Sketching
Wireframes
Design
Style Guide
Prototype
Test
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Hi-Fi Wireframes
Empathizing with the User
Our research began with a competitive analysis to get an idea of what our direct and related competitors offer for college student's shopping experience. We collected screenshots and documented the college shops of 12 online competitors.
From this, we found that the majority of our competitors had some sort of online registry or college student specific incentive. We also found that our direct competitors organized their main pages similarly, with an emphasis on categorizing the common products student's need and providing inspiration to guide their shopping.
Guiding our Research
Moving forward, we conducted our user research aiming to learn more about these issues:
1
Are users facing usability issues
on the Off to College page?
2
How has COVID-19 affected college student's shopping?
3
Would a college registry add value to the user's experience?
Expanding our Research
My teammates then conducted secondary research and collected data from nine online sources.
With each source, we gathered the main points and organized the data with an affinity map. Through this, we discovered these helpful insights:
DEFINE
College Student Survey
My teammates conducted a college student survey to learn more about user's habits and experiences with shopping for college online.
Findings
100%
of respondents have never used the Amazon College Shop
62%
of respondents spend less than 30 minutes shopping for supplies
42%
of respondents rarely ask friends or family to purchase supplies
System Usability Scale Survey
To gain user insight on how the UX/UI of the Off to College page could be improved, we also conducted a System Usability Scale survey.
Findings
33%
of respondents felt the Off to College page was cumbersome to use
42%
of respondents would not like to use the Off to College page frequently
25%
of respondents found the college page to be unnecessarily complex
Understanding the Problem
Based on our research, I introduced Julia into our project to guide our design decisions. We knew that our design should include solutions for students like Julia who have a tight spending budget and no time or patience for difficult online shopping.
Visualizing the Current Experience
With Julia in mind, I created a user journey map to reflect the current user experience on Amazon. By gaining a better understanding of Julia's process and thoughts, we discovered a few opportunities to improve the Off to College page and offer more value to college student shoppers.
Opportunities
Incentivize college shopping on Amazon by offering savings and discounts.
Simplify the organization and navigation of the Off to College page.
Provide product suggestions and inspiration to help guide user's shopping.
These insights brought us to our problem statement:
How might we create a more efficient and valuable shopping experience on Amazon for college students.
Refining the Problem
Our research and persona solidified some of our early assumptions and completely negated some others. We returned to the drawing board to define the problem and consider solutions.
1
Are users facing usability issues
on the Off to College page?
Overall, users found the page to be complex and cumbersome to use
2
How has COVID-19 affected college students shopping?
Most users are now learning from home and shopping online more
3
Would a College Registry add value to the user's experience?
Instead, a college rewards program would allow savings opportunities for students
Writing the User's Story
I then created user stories to lay out Julia's potential goals for her college shopping experience. With the focus on our two main features, the Off to College page and College Rewards Dashboard, I identified what should be included in our design to ensure those goals are met.
Understanding the User's Flow
I also created a user flow to visualize the most direct path Julia would take from the Off to College page, through the task of redeeming a reward, and to her College Rewards dashboard. With this, we were able to identify each screen that needed to be designed and where they would fit into the user flow.
Ideating our Designs
Moving into our design, we started by sketching out our ideas for the Off to College page and the College Rewards Dashboard. While sketching, I considered the priority of content and simplified organization of each page.
Molding the Experience
We reviewed and discussed our sketches and agreed on the layout of each page. I then moved into the mid-fidelity wireframes for the Off to College page and the user task flow to redeem rewards. As supported by our user research, I focused on organizing each page in a way that was simple and intuitive.
Click to view my design decisions
It was important to us to get feedback from our users as often as possible within our timeframe. My teammates conducted 6 usability tests on our mid-fidelity wireframes.
We found that our users generally reacted positively to the designs, but we found some opportunities to improve to the navigation bar and adjust the number of featured products.
"I don't need inspiration, but recommended products are helpful."
"Redeeming rewards seems pretty simple and quick, I like that!"
Designing the Solution
Our team wanted to update the Off to College page to appeal to the fun and lively spirits of college students, while maintaining the look and feel of Amazon's UI. Refreshing the design led us to our style guide for the Off to College Page and College Rewards program.
Bringing the Wireframes to Life
Guided by the user insight from the mid-fidelity wireframe testing and our new style guide, I designed the high-fidelity wireframes with young, energetic students like Julia in mind.
Click to view my design decisions
We tested our high-fidelity wireframes with 3 users, which revealed a few additional improvements:
-
Improve the readability of the secondary menu
-
Add a hover state to rewards to provide direction
-
Add detailed instructions to the 'Apply Reward' box
"I would actually use this rewards program."
"Would I be able to redeem more than one reward at once?"
Walking Through the Experience
The next iteration on our hi-fi wireframes, which implemented the findings from our testing, brought us to our prototype.
Next Steps & Takeaways
Next Steps
1. Test, test, test
The first immediate step would be to test our prototype with users and implement any necessary changes.
2. Refine the visual design
I believe my designs could be slightly improved to better match the look and feel of Amazon's current UI.
3. Expand upon our design
Due to the time constraints of this project, we focused on designing the MVP, however there are more pages that could be designed, including the "My Account" and "Earning Rewards" pages.
Recommendations
1. Improve visibility
Add the College Rewards program to the main navigation and the College Rewards Dashboard to the 'My Account' section to improve visibility, as learned from our research.
2. Integrate with Amazon Prime Student
Integrate the College Rewards programs with Amazon Prime Student to offer a more tailored experience and exclusive rewards.
3. Customization for rewards progress bar
Add an option for users to select which rewards they want to 'pin' to their rewards progress bar to show the rewards relevant to them.
Takeaways
1. Teamwork makes the dream work
The opportunity to work closely and quickly with other diligently was a new and beneficial experience for me. This project allowed for us to learn together and challenge each other as designers, which has truly made me a better product designer.
2. Assumptions are assumptions
The research we conducted completely negated our idea of a college registry, which brought us to a more valuable solution for the user. This was a good lesson in falling in love with the problem, rather than the solution.
