My team of UX designers and I were given eye tracking data gathered from an in store shopping experience at a Winners store. From there, we were tasked with analyzing the data to extract points of relevance and gain insights that could help customers with navigation and finding the desired products.
We asked ourselves, how can we improve customers’ in store shopping experience?
Winners usability and eye tracking capstone project
Role
Researcher
Project Length
November 2019 - March 2020
Main objective
Gain insight and eye track how customers navigate the store
Identify how customers make decisions
Understand what influences customers’ wayfinding strategies
Tasks of the study
Browse the store for 10 minutes
Find a pair of pants
Find a baby gift for a friend
Find a kitchen gift item
The method
The participant was given instructions their tasks before beginning their shopping experience. They were given a pair of eye tracking glasses to collect data for analysis.
The data was then uploaded into the Tobii software to view the heat maps and gaze plots.
The participants
12 female participants aged 25-54 were recruited for this study, as they make up the majority of shoppers that visit Winners.
The following tasks reflect one shopper’s in store experience.
Task 1: Browse the store for 10 minutes
Findings:
Participant’s attention was drawn towards the smaller clothing racks that were being promoted. The heat map suggests that customers will pay more attention to items that are presented this way more so than the clothes on the regular racks. The participant found this useful.
The participant needed help from moderator in order to find runners. Locating items is an issue, as the participant states “why are they over here? That’s so weird.”
Task 2: Search for a pair of pants
Findings:
As the participant was searching for dress pants, they were confused on why casual pants were also in that section. It was misleading and she thought that they would be elsewhere.
Task 3: Search for a baby gift for a friend
Findings:
When the participant walks down the baby/toys section, we hear them say “Oh, there’s like baby stuff up here?!”. This shows that items are not categorized clearly.
The price tags of items were not easy to find. This negatively impacts the shopping experience and ease of access to the user.
Task 4: Find a kitchen gift item
Findings:
The participant is aware that she is near the home section, but cannot discern where the kitchen supplies are. They ask “Is this the kitchen section?”.
We can see here that the shelves are very disorganized.
Final results:
Navigation is not specific
Unclear, or vague navigation around store is a barrier for users to achieve their goal.
Clutter Causes Confusion
Messy, over stocked areas creates confusion, which delays task completion, and overwhelming experiences.
Labeling and Grouping
Within general sections, smaller categories of items were not clearly identified.
Summary
Important usability issues were identified that consumers face everyday. These are opportunities in which design solutions can be implemented to improve the in store experience.
Recommendations:
Declutter by keeping less stock on the floor
Items were stocked in a disorganized manner, which made it difficult for the user to locate desired items. To make it more efficient, items should be stocked with more space and categorized properly. This will lower the risk of customers feeling overwhelmed.
Having less items on the floor may help in keeping the store less cluttered and messy, users will also feel less overwhelmed by the abundance of items.
Redesigning the space around the merchandise
“I wouldn’t buy dress pants from here”. This quote from the user clearly shows that being sold right next to the ‘casual’ pants devalued any dress pants on the rack. Therefor, redesigning sections to reflect ‘dressier’ items (ie. type of hangers, height and type of racks/ display, colour, lighting etc) could provide greater confidence in shopper perceptions.
Kiosks for wayfinding
If kiosks were added to different areas around the store, users may find it helpful for navigating or item checking, or arrows to guide them towards where they wish to go.
Increase the abundance of signs for shoppers to see
We see that most attention was focused on eye level height or higher when looking for navigation in the store. This shows that more signs in that level should be implemented to be put up in areas where users are looking more often.