REDESIGNING RATINGS AND REVIEWS
Evolving and modernizing a legacy ratings and reviews system to improve usability and usefulness.
User Research, Industry best practices, Information Architecture, Concepts, Wireframes, Agile/Lean UX
BEFORE
Legacy Design: The original design focused on showing several different data visualizations, and the result is far too much information for a user to parse.
AFTER
The Redesign: The redesign focuses on making the data easier to understand, parse, and filter. It helps the user find the information they are looking for.
The Challenge
uShip had not updated their ratings and reviews system for over 10 years, and we were tasked with modernizing it.
Users found the visualizations overwhelming and confusing. There was too much information, and not enough context setting
Relevant data was hard to find, making it difficult for users to discern useful information
As a result, users were unable to parse, comprehend, and ultimately not use the information effectively
Key Terms
Shipper: A consumer who is trying to ship an item.
Transporter: Professionals on uShip who can transport items.
My Role
Collaborated with stake holders and helped define the scope of the project
Designed and conducted user research sessions that helped identify product issues
Produced actionable deliverables (sketches, workflow diagrams, wireframes) that helped guide product decision.
Collaborated with product managers, visual designers, and developers to ensure design solutions where implemented as intended.
The Process
Understanding product goals
To better understand what was working, what needed to be improved, and what needed to be excluded, we began by holding stakeholder interviews. We interviewed 4 different product teams (Trust and Safety, Account Managers, Enterprise Managers,Car Shipping, Furniture shipping, Larger Than Truckload, and Customer Support) to better understand current and future initiatives that would influence the ratings and review process in the future.
Meeting with Stake Holders: Meeting with stakeholders and doing affinity diagrams to better understand product goals.
Learning about the users (Shippers & Transporters)
When I joined the project, there was no clear understanding of what the users needed and assumptions had not yet been verified. As a result, there was no clear understanding on what the key issues were, and no plan of action on how and which issues we needed to address. I therefore began this project with an effort to understand the attitudes, needs, and workflows of the users, to clarify, scope, and formulate a plan of action.
I conducted 10-20 phone interviews, analyzed 5 years worth of customer feedback, and consulted industry best practices and usability studies, to better understand how users interact with ratings and reviews. Through my research I was able to identify key issues with the designs, user needs, and recommend solutions that would help users take informed decisions.
Solutions and Iterations
Once we identified the major issues, we quickly started to brainstorm and test ideas to figure out what possible viable solutions would look like. Depending on the scope and complexity of the problem, I either sketched out solutions on my own, hosted brainstorming sessions with the appropriate product team, and for really complex problems conducted mini design sprints. The end goal was to provide sketches, scenarios, low-fidelity wireframes, and recommendations on how to proceed. This ultimately helped the team understand what is usable, useful, and desirable.
Brainstorming Together: Working with product managers, developers and visual designers to come up with multiple viable solutions
Wireframes: A few examples of wireframes I created to explore layouts, functionality, and flows
Implementation Strategy
The sketches, and wireframes I produced helped the team measure scope and highlight technical feasibility. To figure out technical constraints, I created prototypes and worked quickly with a team of developers to figure out implementation timelines. I also helped test and explore third part applications to figure out if an integration would be a more suitable solution. Ultimately we decided to use a third party application as it satisfied our basic requirements.
Key Insights
Based on our user research, we were able to learn the following key insights about how people use ratings and reviews. These helped establish the direction for the new product.
Quick Judgements
User do not have enough time to research every transporter throughly. Instead they make quick judgements. If they don’t like the score, the won’t even bother reading any reviews.
Users are looking for certain specifics
Users are always looking for certain specifics. Highlighting critical information can make it easier for a user to spot the right data
Some users look for red flags
Some users will quickly filter and scan negative (3 or lower stars) reviews. They do this to identify potential red flags.
Design Solution
The Problems
Reviews are hard to parse
Poor information architecture meant that critical information was obscured, and users were focusing on the wrong data. This made it hard for a user to read a review, and even harder for a transporter to respond appropriately
As a result, users were unable to get the necessary information they needed, making all the reviews unnecessary.
Some of the major issues with the legacy designs
Too many scores and ranks
There were 3 separate scores (Feedback score, Star Rating, and Positive Feedback %) with no indication on what they were, how they were calculated, or how to evaluate them.
“They have a 65 feedback score. Is that out of a100? Is it good?”
As a result, users were feeling overwhelmed and unable to make quick informed decisions.
The Solutions
The focus is on critical content, making it easier to parse
We removed unnecessary context, and made sure the relevant information was easier to spot. On top of that we made it easier for a carrier to write a response.
Show only the most useful information
Users wanted two questions answered.
How good is this transporter?
And why should I trust this rating?
Both of these are achieved, by highlighting the rating, and by showing how many people have left reviews (social proofing)
Final Design
To reduce build costs, we decided to use a third party application. As a result, some minor design changes had to be made based on the technical constraints of the application. I worked closely with visual design, product, and developers to make minor changes and bring the designs to life.
Mockup: Design in collaboration with Kelli Raisler
Results
Increase in the amount of feedback left
When we started this project, about 37% users left reviews. At the date of writing (2 months after release) the number of people leaving reviews increased to 45%. There has also been a 15% increase in transporters responding to a review.
Increase in the amount of feedback left
With the legacy designs less than 1% users were engaging with the reviews. On average, users are now reading anywhere between 2-8 reviews. We also reduced bounce rate from 80% to 45.9 %