Amazon’s Luxury Beauty
I led the user experience and visual design efforts for the Amazon Luxury Beauty Experience that would provide a premium experience within the Amazon Beauty category to appeal to luxury brands and consumers who shop for those products. The experience covered many facets of the Amazon experience, including Product Detail pages, Product Description pages, Color and Size selectors, and the creation of a new Similar Product selector that would allow users to select premium beauty products that could be curated by internal product managers with more detailed descriptions of the product and why it was selected.
The goal was to create an intuitive experience that made it easier for customers to view and compare beauty products using rich imagery and make customers more confident making their luxury beauty purchases through Amazon. The experience needed to be responsive and work across all form factors, including desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Discovery
Like monthly deliveries, creating a premium beauty experience is very complex with many moving parts. When it comes to beauty products, customers of all ages tend to be suspicious and more comfortable walking into a store than opening an app. Any experience would be compared to in-person experiences from existing companies such as Sephora or Ulta where users can speak with a consultant and try different options before they buy. So creating this level of comfort was a large hurdle to overcome.
I began my research by studying the in-person experience at several local beauty counters and having ad-hoc conversations with customers about their recent experience and what they would need to be more comfortable making a similar purchase online. From this, I interviewed several customers and watched as they navigated online beauty experiences to see did and did not like.
What I learned was:
Customers wanted a more curated experience, a more expansive purchase selector, and liked where recommendations came from a real person and not an algorithm.
The existing product detail page selector experience was not suited to complex decisions around beauty, as we did were not able to convey more abstract elements such as scent.
Design – Complete the Look
A major area we needed to explore was the Complete the Look widget where content and products would be curated by Product Managers. They would craft custom content for individual items that could be compiled and assigned to products based on a customer’s purchase habits and requirements. Based on customer feedback, this experience would need to function differently on desktop and mobile. The driving goal was to create confidence and help spur impromptu purchases.
Unlike offering cords or batteries with a purchase, beauty was not a one-size-fits-all experience. Many factors influence a purchase decision, such as skin type and color.
Wanted to be able to make a decision, be confident it was the right decision, and get back to their day. Customers wanted to replace the drive to the store.
Design – Explorations
Armed with information about our customer’s desired experience, I met with project and product managers to discuss and brainstorm potential experiences. I gathered these ideas and converted those into a set of requirements and guidelines. From this, I created a set of sketches to convey how some of these experiences could look and feel, and create a common vision. From these meetings I was able to craft a user journey map, required components and patterns, and basic interactions.
From there, I created a wireframes to test the customer experience. I explored interactions and highlighted the elements to be defined as their own separate project, identify areas for further testing, and created a timeline with milestones for deliverables.
Design – Aesthetics
The project moved quickly. As we had a large resource of internal testers, I ran many small usability sessions that allowed me to gather quick and useful feedback to iterate and move to higher fidelity designs. I created the general experience of the product design across desktop and mobile, then expanded the designs out to more pages as we gained approvals and alignment.
Design – A+ Product Description
Another area to explore was the Product Description page where users could gather additional information about a product. The product description experience varies widely across Amazon departments and categories. I explored the different characteristics of products across the beauty departments and created a list of the elements that could be commoditized and reused. From this, I created a basic framework for the page and the different widgets that could be used, such as:
The product description with higher resolution images
Artist tips or instructions how the product could be applied
Photo gallery to showcase the steps to apply or use the product
A color display to showcase all of the different colors for each product
Design – Color & Scent Selectors
This was the most complex selector at Amazon. It needed to display multiple characteristics, such as color, size, scent, coating (matte vs glossy), and style. We conducted several studies on information customers associate with these characteristics and referenced their feedback as we iterated. As a team, we selected images that would appeal to a more sophisticated customer.
I crafted a sample of several selectors to test how well this experience conveyed this information to users.
Validate – Selector Usability Study
To validate our experience for the new selector, I helped facilitate a study that involved 9 female participants, aged between 23 and 58, ranging between light to heavy Amazon shoppers. 4 participants were high-end beauty shoppers, with the other being 5 standard beauty shoppers. We found several interesting findings, such as customers appreciated when they had easy access to contextually relevant information when evaluating variations and we needed to ensure the call to action was clearly visible when evaluating an item for purchase. Like many studies, we also found areas of opportunity. An example would be the inclusion of an immersive selector that allowed users to zoom into the color or option was not valuable to the purchase or evaluation of the product. Another example was the inclusion of a free sample selector, which users did not trust and almost refused to interact with.
Overall, the results were positive and I was excited for the opportunities we discovered as they presented additional interesting and complex problems for us to solve in the future.
Deliver – Style Guides, Redlines, & Guidance
With our usability study complete, I began the process of preparing the experience for delivery to our development team. Several different types of deliverables were required to ensure the vision was implemented properly. As our development team was closely involved during our research, design, and validation stages this provided a basic understanding of the experience, which lessened the need for extensive documentation.
I created a style guide to show give details and guidance for the framework, layout, and components. I also designed a set of redlines to give more in-depth guidance for the components and patterns, and worked with the Human Interface Guidelines team to get new components and patterns introduced to the global design group.
