Universal Search
Redirected the user experience of the app by bringing focus to the search feature, increasing traffic and conversion.
Redirected the user experience of the app by bringing focus to the search feature, increasing traffic and conversion.
LocalVocal is a marketing cum e-commerce app created to support small and mid-range businesses, mom n pop stores in hyperlocal communities in India.
1. Vendors: Vendors use this app to market their products and announce their latest offerings
2. Shoppers: Shoppers use it to find the best deals vendors offer
1. 74% customers experience churn within 3 months following the app's launch.
2. Vendors were hardly getting new customers. The revenue remained almost the same
3. Shoppers were not getting more value from this product compared to any other on-demand delivery apps
1. 62% increased in search adoption
2. 77% increase in search initiation
3. 40% increase in search conversion
4. 2.3% increase in subscribed vendors
I identified the gap in the experience, took the initiative, and owned this project.
I led the research and design for this project.
I collaborated with:
- UI Designer
- Visual designer
- Product Manager
- UI development team
Kickoff & Research
Discovery
User Behavior
Problem Statement
Solution Experiments
Revised Problem Statement
How we got there
Vision
Design Experiments
Design Principles
Why are the vendors not getting the desired visibility & and shoppers not discovering the deals?
"Due to the Covid curfew, I am giving out big discounts to attract customers. Even then I am having difficulty with the sales. I subscribed to the app thinking, this would change. But I see no difference."
- Prakash (vendor), Prakash Provisions
"What's the point if I don't see the deals and offers on the items I need and when I need them?"
- Shreya (shopper), Homemaker
We tested the existing app with 8 participants in each - the vendor and the shopper category. Our goals were to understand the user's motivation to use the app, the challenges, and the areas of improvement.
The problem existed mainly because of a major assumption we made with the explore feature.
We assumed that because we made the explore feature super accessible on the app, the shoppers would actively use it.
Instead, the feature was not used to its best capacity because of a lack of time and motivation.
Follow multiple businesses they are interested in from the explore tab ---->Go to the feed tab to look at the posts from those businesses to track new products, discounts, offerings, etc offered ----> Compare the best deal in their locality ----> Make a purchase.
Following only their usual go-to businesses ----> Mainly use the app when they need something ----> reach out to the vendors ----> place an order
1) vendors get more shoppers and
2) motivate shoppers to find the best deals?
To help our users, we decided to try out alternate solutions such as an in-app notification center, push notifications, flashcards, and advertisements.
These ideas solved the visibility challenge but failed to motivate shoppers to take action.
.png)
.png)
.png)
1) vendors get more shoppers and
2) shoppers quickly discover services and deals catering to their interests and needs
After further user studies, we decided to change the direction of our experience from --> letting shoppers find information from the feed and the explore features to --> guiding shoppers to find rich and helpful content via search.
.png)
After doing market research on some of the popular e-commerce apps in different categories such as fashion, grocery, movies, etc.
We created some basic guidelines for search redesign:
1. It provides a data window across multiple business verticals.
2. It provides a collection of entry points to products & businesses.
3. It intelligently understands shopper's intent to help them move faster.
We tested multiple designs that were in line with our vision and goals and evaluated their trade-offs.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
In-app search is one of the most useful features of any app. A large number of users will come to the app looking for something specific and the app must get them to the right result in the minimum possible time.
I defined the following principles keeping this in mind.
1. Clear hierarchy
2. Scalability
3. Reduce cognitive load
4. Efficiency
