Another exercise that helps discover attributes that pull retailers into the consideration set for a given product type involves filling out a table with a list of the attributes most likely to differentiate retailers in that category and ask customers to rate several retailers on these attributes. As a simple example, you could ask customers to fill out an evaluation of retailer attributes using the following worksheet. (SA: Strongly agree; A: Agree; N: Neutral; D: Disagree; SD: Strongly disagree)
- Convenient
- Simple
- Cost saving
- Easy to find products/services
- Easy to check out
- Easy to get details
- Provides help when needed
- Has the products or services I’m looking for
- Great customer service
- Great online experience
Based on these ratings, the user experience design strategy should include guidance about how to achieve differentiation for a given user type using design components. Most retailers have much more detailed quantitative data about differentiators, but they are usually aggregated such that its difficult to target these findings to a given type of customer or persona. This kind of module helps bridge that gap, although a follow-up quantitative exercise may be needed to drive out more comprehensive findings that are representative or validated to the extent needed to guide user experience design of a high-traffic web site.
Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)
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