My Favourite list improvement
Overview
Makro PRO targets small businesses and retailers that frequently repurchase items. To enhance their repurchase experience, Makro PRO introduces the My Favourite List feature, allowing users to conveniently add saved items to their basket. Currently, only 7.8% of Makro PRO users utilise this feature for checkout, despite 300 unique users daily creating Favorite lists. The reasons for low utilization are unknown, and the feature occupies a prominent spot on the nav bar without change for a long time. After investigating the current experience, the solutions to make it more user-friendly and optimise the usage are proposed. This includes reducing redundant flows by 50%, improving list manageability, and enhancing the UI design for better visual appeal, aiming to achieve improved performance and user satisfaction.
Role:
Product designer
Timeline:
Approx. 3 weeks (Oct 2023)
Tools :
Miro, Figma & Mixpanel
Methods:
User testing & interviews, As-is product analysis
As the part of internship @
Context
Referring to Makro PRO's performance data (tracking on Mixpanel), My Favourite List has less than 8% of users who utilise the feature, so there's a discussion about the possibility of improving or removing this feature. However, when we looked at the data, we found that there are more than 300 unique users creating the list in a day for months. This suggests a significant number of users who are using it every day. Therefore, there's a high potential to improve the feature as we can attract more people to the feature and further enhance Makro PRO's performance.
Challenges
-
My favourite list hasn’t been updated for a very long time, so the design is very old and not aligned with the overall current design anymore; however, the stakeholders want a few changes that won’t affect other parts of the app and invest as less effort possible on this since it is a minor feature
-
The feature currently isn’t linked to inventory stock, so it displays all items on the list, even those items are out of stock or unavailable to ship from their selected branch
Goal
Improve the feature's user experience and visual components to be more user-friendly and up-to-date with the current design, so it can succeed in more active users and satisfaction in the repurchase experience with Makro PRO.
Meet the team
Research & Analysis
User testing & Interviews
To see how the current product performs and how the users perceive My Favourite list, User testing was conducted with 12 current MKP users (restaurant owners, small retailers & and small businesses). We asked how they manage their stock, walked through them on my Favourite list and asked them how they felt. The UT suggested that flow and design issues the participants faced using this feature.
Findings
-
For first-time Favelist users, they highly need guidance to go through the feature without getting lost.
-
Most users cannot tell how My Favourite List and Basket different
-
It is somehow true that they believe that this feature will be beneficial for managing the stock, however, the current flow doesn’t align with their behaviours.
-
Most participants who are restaurants and small retailer businesses manage their stock manually (by noting or POS system). They don’t buy the same items every time, so the current flow that forces them to add all items from the list to the basket is blocking them from using this feature.
Current flows investigation
From the user testing, the findings point out the flow complication. So, I investigate the current app experience to uncover problems and solutions. Many minor issues are identified; however, some minor issues are not critical and require more work across other squads. So, we will focus on major issues that we can make a change specifically on My Favourite List.
Findings
-
The steps for creating a list and adding items to the list are too complicated and redundant
-
The list doesn’t visually display like a clickable CTA & and with no information apart from the list name, so user tends to find it difficult to identify its function and don’t use it
-
Very unnoticeable entry point on PDP urging users to add to the basket instead
-
The list displays all items even if it’s out of stock or unavailable, and no limited quantities of each product, forcing users to add all products and manage the available items and quantities later on the basket (No different from adding items directly to the basket and managing later)
-
Unclear how to delete items on the list
Problem statement
The fave list feature requires much effort from the users due to its complex flows, invisibility and confusion between this and basket. Users cannot see the available in-stock quantity and they are forced to add all items in the list to the basket without their selection which requires more afford for them to go to the basket and delete unwanted items themselves, so some decided to dropped off after a few attempts. This is the problem because the feature is in production but it gives low values to the company (only 7.8% added items to the basket to purchase) and to users since they cannot make use of it.
Ideation
From the research findings, the user pain points are identified. I parallely pointed out the solutions to quickly ideate the design and tried those ideas out with the wireframes. For the UI design, most UI component styles are grabbed from design system components we use across the app already, so we don’t have to create new things and the users don’t have to learn new things for this small feature.
Painpoint #1: Unclear information
Painpoint
No proper onboarding instruction, urging users to go exploring by themselves. Even if they added items already, they can’t tell that it’s the list
Solution
-
Providing clear information on the Favelist page
-
This first time using the fave list - graphic image & and description that indicates the function clearly
-
Already created list - clear as being a collection
-
Painpoint #2: Unclear entry point
Painpoint
Users can’t tell where is the entry point of My Favourite list on PDP. So, when they see add to basket button, they clicked on that instead and get confused between these two features.
Solution
Providing a more prominent entry point (heart button on PDP). We cannot relocate the button according to design system conditions and limitations, we create the line and colour of the icon, so it will stand out from text and contents.
Painpoint #3: Complicated flow
Painpoint
The creating and adding items to list flow are complicated, take time, and tend to make the users easily get lost (each step needs guidance). This is because the other parts of the app are gradually developed over time, while My Favorite List elements are still the same. So, it doesn’t fit the pace of other flows in the app.
Solution
As the solution, we strengthen the flow by reducing some redundant steps and reworking the logic of the flow.
-
Instead of asking users to create a list they don’t know what it does, we provide more clear information and let them browse the product directly. So, when they click on the entry point, users will be asked to create a list here and the items will be added automatically to the list created.
-
For the next time, the product will be automatically added to the same list they added last time; however, if they wish to change the list, they can click on the toast window to select the existing list or create a new one. This helps the users working on lists more conveniently without urging them to select a list every time.
Painpoint #4: Limitation on managing items on list
Painpoint
Cannot select only wanted items, so they have to add all on the list to the basket and go delete some off themselves due to unavailability or exceeded quantity (back and forth experience).
Solution
Providing a more prominent entry point (heart button on PDP). We cannot relocate the button according to design system conditions and limitations, we create the line and colour of the icon, so it will stand out from text and contents.
Painpoint #5: Confusing between My Favourite List vs. Basket
Painpoint
Users can’t tell where is the entry point of My Favourite list on PDP. So, when they see add to basket button, they clicked on that instead and get confused between these two features.
Solution
Providing a more prominent entry point (heart button on PDP). We cannot relocate the button according to design system conditions and limitations, we create the line and colour of the icon, so it will stand out from text and contents.
Iteration
There were 2 iterations made after the ideation since some ideas are brought into the discussion by the team in order to make our feature more user-friendly. So, all the design was kept while we mostly focused on the user flow and explore any other possibility that could simplify the feature.
1st iteration – Single folder list idea
In the first iteration, the stakeholder raised the idea of ‘what if there’s no separate folder?’. We thought that single folder favelist we could shorten the flow by getting rid of creating and deleting new lists and managing list flow, moreover, when users add the items to the fave list they don’t have to select the folder list. At first, we thought that this would make the experience more straightforward and compact, so we drafted out the flow of a single Fave list.
However, we found some constraints to this idea which are:
Will this lose the sense of being a shopping list? What if they have so many different items? And how this is different from adding items into the basket directly, since the users like adding items to the basket to save for later and confused users between favelist and basket.
This conflicts with our original goals for this feature, so the team agreed on multiple list design directions.
2nd iteration – Multiple folder list idea
For the second iteration, we reorganised the flows to fit the multiple list idea. We think that this logically works well for the large scale wholesale retailer like Makro PRO. Most Makro PRO users are small retailers, small businesses and restaurant owners, so they tend to look for several kinds of products and don't buy all the same product each time.
With a categorising folder and selection tool on the list, it will be more convenient to manage their repurchase experience and will be suited the user's behavior more.
Team & stakeholder collaboration
In this project, I took full responsibility as the product designer and actively participated in both the research and design phases. I closely collaborated with the researcher and Makro PRO’s current users during user testing sessions for the AS-IS version, taking charge of facilitating the sessions to extract insightful user feedback. Our team did a great teamwork on UT & interview sessions and we overcome all the problems tackled along the process.
Throughout the design process, I maintained close collaboration with stakeholders & senior designer to ensure alignment with Makro PRO's objectives for this feature. Even if I’m doing the internship, the senior designer really respects ideas and the solutions I proposed. He’s very supportive and allowed me carry the project by myself. He participated closely and gave some feedbacks to make sure I’m aligned to the business requirement.
While progressing through the project, disagreements occasionally arose, such as when the team proposed single-folder idea. In these instances, I expressed my concerns, even though our perspectives may not have initially aligned. Despite this, I drafted the first iteration as per their requirements and highlighted the issues within this version. Through rational discussions, the stakeholders eventually grasped the concerns, leading us to pivot towards the adoption of multiple lists.
Summary
As of Q1 2024, the development of My Favorite List is underway, and we currently lack statistical data to determine user satisfaction. Despite this, we have successfully reduced task time by 30-40% through the reorganization and elimination of unnecessary steps, aiming to simplify the user journey and enhance usability.
My Favorite List has remained unchanged since the beginning of Makro PRO, becoming outdated and no longer aligning with the current dynamic design. To address this, we've revamped the UI using the latest design systems and components. We've introduced new elements to facilitate user interaction and have reorganised the flow, making the feature more convenient. Our goal is to encourage increased utilization of this long-neglected feature which is now seamlessly integrated into the production environment.
