Case Study: Does Changing the Position and Terminology of a Function Change the Way Users Interact with It?

If there is a function on a website or app, users should be able to utilise it and interact with it. It should make their purchase journey smoother. But what happens when the function is labelled in words that users do not understand or identify with?

This retailer had an ‘Express Buy’ option on the PLP. The objective of Express Buy was to allow the user to buy directly from the PLP rather than the PDP. This actually follows the Simplicity Principle.

However, Google Analytics, heatmaps, session recordings, and user lab sessions showed that this function was not being used adequately.

The problem was that Express Buy was not noticed; users glanced over it. Its visual hierarchy seemed to have been lost. And when users did see it, they were confused by the terminology and did not understand what it was.

Hypothesis and Psychological Technique Applied

Two things needed to be done for this function to work: a) The terminology needed to be simplified to something more understandable such as ‘Quick View’, and b) It needed to be repositioned so that it had a higher visual hierarchy, making it more visible.

We believed that the change in terminology would help users understand exactly what it was and repositioning it would allow more people to interact with it, thereby increasing their ability to buy through it.

Experiment

We changed the term ‘Express Buy’ to ‘Quick View’ and made it more prominent on the PLP.

We also added additional elements and information to the Quick View pop-up to help the user make the purchase and go directly to the basket.

Control

Variation

Results

From the observed data, we were able to see that the Variation showed a high probability of being better than the Control.

Learnings

Getting the message to be seen and understood can indeed help increase sales. In this experiment it helped get more users to click on and buy from the Quick View variation.