How Amazon couldn’t ignore these navigational patterns for a better UX
Browsing vs Searching vs Discovery.
Humans in Amazon to Humans on Amazon
It wasn’t long ago from the time-scale perspective that we were hunting in the gigantic Amazon forests for our survival. Humans are naturally hunter-gatherers. We obtained most of our food by the act of foraging. We searched for it! It should be evident that humans are really good at searching. We survived and we are at the top of the food chain.
But what about the digital environments?
No! we aren’t that great as we consider ourselves to be.
Users have extraordinarily inadequate research skills when it comes to solving problems on the Web. — NNgroup
In one of the research studies by NNgroup, they watched users conduct more than 100 searches for a broad range of tasks. Only once did they see a user change strategy.
Today, millions of customers flock to Amazon every day. Most of them get what they are hunting for.
UX researchers, designers and everybody else at Amazon had to closely monitor the search behaviour patterns of customers to understand their needs. Based on their analysis, they created navigational patterns to successfully guide modern humans to hunt their prey online.
Browsing
Who’s not guilty of switching channels randomly on TV and taking the life out of those tiny buttons on that remote?
Who’s not guilty of spending countless hours on Facebook and scrolling to the deepest point in the earth?
God knows what you were searching for!
Yes! That is browsing. When you do not know exactly what you want, you browse. And this is quite common.
People are better at recognizing things than recalling them from memory. It’s much easier and faster to click on a link than to enter a search term: you don’t have to spontaneously come up with the proper search expression, or worry about synonyms and spelling. — Zoltán Gócza
The browsing behaviour of our users can be classified into two categories — directed browsing and undirected browsing.
Directed browsing
Remember the last time you were hungry and wanted to order food through an app?
You were not sure what cuisine you wanted to order but you were hungry and wanted it quick on your table. Probably you needed something spicy.
Lying on your couch, you were just browsing through the list of different restaurants and their menu items.
You didn’t want to skip through the list and miss anything. But you were scanning through the list really quickly.
Won’t you slow down a bit if you saw one of these?
- Name or logo of a known food chain
- Delicious looking image of your food
- Offer or discounted price
You would slow down, right? This kind of browsing is directed browsing. Though you are scanning through almost everything in the list, at the end of the day, you would need some food on the table.
To leverage this pattern and help your users, you would want to focus on attributes that create emotional appeal.
All of those things above that slowed you down are worth taking advantage of. Keep them in your pocket forever!
Un-directed Browsing
This one is pretty straightforward. I bet everybody already is familiar with it.
You are looking around thinking about the big question — what to do next with my long life? And the answer to that mighty question is — get on the ride with Facebook, Instagram or Reddit.
There is time. There is no goal. And there is a little focus.
That’s the perfect recipe for un-directed browsing! Now please don’t get me wrong. I’m not against it. Yet, I don’t recommend its abuse.
You just want to keep yourself updated. So you go to a news app and read through the headlines.
You want to entertain yourself and interested in what’s happening around you. So you fire up the social media app.
To design for such users, you could find out what piques their curiosity. Find the categories they are interested in and keep refining their feed. Personalise it.
Ever observed how youtube present you with a new refined feed depending on where you clicked earlier and spent the time watching videos?
We humans are not just hunter-gatherers. We are also insatiably curious. And that is why we keep scrolling for more. Our lust for dopamine is endless.
We need something new all the time.
Searching
These smart folks know exactly what they want and they do not take no for answer. They’ll keep refining their search parameters to reach the desired result they have in mind and they don’t like wasting their time on anything else.
If they are looking for an iphone 12, 256 GB, black color, they’ll use the search box for their query and hit enter very soon.
They’ll use all the filters and sorting to float that result at the top.
Anything that doesn’t meet their criterion is just an obstacle for them and they get rid of that pretty soon. It is completely ignored as it doesn’t serve their purpose.
Obviously, prices and reviews often play a role here but they have found the result they have been looking for. They can look for more information about it or they can put that in the cart now.
To design for such kinds of users, Amazon has been improving its search engine algorithm day in day out. It’s competing directly with Google for this.
It suggests relevant search suggestions as soon as first few alphabets are entered.
It understands that its users can mis-spell the query and they auto-correct it for them.
It provides an exhaustive list of filters that helps users narrow down.
Amazon has existed for more than two decades and it has laid down the strong groundwork for the new e-commerce players.
Don’t try to win over browsing with search. For many users, the journey is as important as the destination. For these users, navigating a well-designed website evokes anticipation, interest, and even happiness. And we definitely want these emotions for our users.
Almost all products have search functionality. It provides an escape hatch when all navigation fails. It serves as a safety net for well-planned navigation, even among users who prefer browsing.
Discovery
This is when users don’t know what they don’t know. Too fancy, huh!
Let’s take an example. You go to a grocery store after your workout with just one aim. To get a milk packet for the morning. But you come out loaded with mouth-watering chips packets.
What just happened. That’s discovery!
You didn’t go in there with that aim. You saw them, and you bought them.
Imagine for a moment that you were a UX designer at Amazon. Yes! I know you are a good one.
Now your Alexa team at Amazon believes strongly that customers would love this product and it should be made visible to them. How would you make it discoverable for your customers?
Would you throw a pop-up on their faces when they are browsing a list of mobile phones?
Or would you run a loud screaming banner on the top of every product?
Or would you just add to their cart when they are about to check-out? *Amazon actually did this to me for their prime membership. I hated that*
I’m sure you wouldn’t do any of them. You are a smart designer.
And there are talented designers at Amazon too. What they did was to place it strategically at the bottom of products that belonged to the speakers category.
You must have seen these sections on the product pages.
People also bought ‘X’ with this
Similar products
Recommended product based on past purchase
By learning about their customers, they are making it relevant to what they are already looking for without throwing it on their faces. *Though they still do it sometimes*
Re-finding
Human memory is fallible. We often forget what we wanted and get lost in the world of the internet. Damn those click-baits!
But Amazon took great care in personalising our feed. It would remember our search and would present us with the last searched products. *This has been embarrassing for some in public*
When we see it again, we are reminded that we needed it. And we put that in the cart.
One more thing…
This isn’t the end of how to improve navigation in digital products, or how designers at Amazon nailed the navigational problem. It’s difficult to fathom how Amazon would solve customer’s needs without these patterns.
There are a lot of other tech companies that are working as hard to understand their customers and they too made huge contributions to solve the customer’s problems of navigation.
References
Incompetent Research Skills Curb Users’ Problem Solving, NNgroup
Website browsing behavior patterns, 3.7 designs
Search behavior patterns, boxes and arrows
