The Book Cow

Improving the customer experience by enhancing customer control and logical user flow.

See the case study summary

T Y P E

Concept project.

T E A M

Nobuto Nishizawa (Solo).

M E T H O D

Business analysis, heuristic evaluation, user flow, competitive analysis, sketching, user interviews, wireframing, prototyping and usability testing.

D U R A T I O N

2-week sprint (Dec 2021).

M Y R O L E

UX Designer.

T O O L S

Pen & paper, Figma, Whimsical, Airtable, Notion.

Brief

The Book Cow is a community-focused bookstore situated at the heart of Canberra, half of their store is dedicated to children and educational books.

In this concept, The Book Cow is looking to improve their online store sales which currently makes up 30% of their total revenue, they are hoping to achieve this by targeting 'Deal diver' archetype customers. The Book Cow hopes to maintain their community focus base customers who like to visit their physical store.

The Book Cow and their customers

To understand the targetted deal diver personality type, a scenario was created to bring its personality to life.

Jenny is a school teach and looks for quality educational books online for her students.
She likes to hunt for the lowest prices and wants to feel she is getting the best value for money to invest into her students.

For Jenny to have a positive experience at The Book Cow online store, there are several important points to consider.

1.

Jenny needs to be able to buy a book easily and efficiently without any roadblocks.

2.

Jenny should be able to search for books easily and efficiently.

3.

Jenny would be excited by seeing discounted prices and book bundles because they will evoke a feeling of value for money.

Taking a look at the current website

Two heuristic evaluations were conducted on The Book Cow website. We found the four following points to be the most prominent and would be an ideal fix to improve the site experience.

The main website and the shop website were two separate websites.
Product categories were confusing and included sections that weren't relevant to books.
There was a lack of control when searching for books.
There were many minor bugs during the checkout process.

Check out pain points

User flow of the website was mapped out to see any pain points, here are the key findings from the checkout process.

A customer would need to sign up to the book store before being able to purchase a book.
The delivery address had to be put in before selecting a shipping method. If you selected store pick up, putting in the address in the previous step became redundant.
The very first mention of the loyalty program could only be seen at the payment stage of the checkout.

How might Jenny feel?

With heuristic evaluations and user flow findings, here are some thoughts Jenny might have about The Book Cow online shopping experience.

I can't see any books on sale.
I can't find what I want with the categories they have.
I don't want to sign up to buy my books.
Doesn't look like they have a loyalty program.
The dual website is confusing and I have to switch back and forth.
Check out feels broken and I'm not sure if I can trust this website.

The next step was to look at what the competition was doing.

What are the competitors doing?

Firstly, almost all bookstores especially bigger online stores had their prices slashed. They showed the recommended retail price (RRP), followed by their price. RRP was almost always in grey and with a line through it. Their price was bold and larger. Some even had discount percentages displayed.

Not all but some of the websites allowed guest checkout which obviously meant they could buy a book without signing up. This is something The Book Cow would benefit greatly from since most customers just want to buy the book and move on with their day.

Lastly, the rewards program was very visible prior to adding a book to a cart. Reminding the customer about the loyalty points they'll receive during each step of the checkout was a clever way to promote them to finish their purchase.

Where does The Book Cow fit in?

The Book Cow website currently has no books on sale on their homepage, it displays a photo of their physical store, some events, and other store-related posts. It's content-heavy and places them on the content/community side of the graph.

To increase their online revenue, they would need to place themselves more towards the commerce side of the graph.

Increasing The Book Cow online sales

We believe

that combining two websites into one, simplifying the product categories, allowing more control when searching for books, and streamlining the check out process.

Will result in

an increase in online store book sales and fewer abandoned carts.

Because

we know being forced to create an account and complicated checkout processes are amongst the top reasons why carts are abandoned.

So how can we start to improve?

Home page

The first step was to add books to the homepage where customers could see them immediately, but the store image, call to action to come to the store and a community link all had to remain front and centre to align with the business goal of maintaining a sense of community.

Book search

Books search page would see a simple filter, sort by drop-down menu and item per page selection buttons to give full control to the customer when searching for books.

Product page

The product page would be simplified and introduce a hierarchy of information from most important to least. Also, the selection of a similar book at the bottom of the page allows users to search similar books quickly.

Book bundles

For the deal divers like Jenny, it may be a good idea to incorporate a book bundles page where they can purchase a set of books for a reduced price.

Accounts page

Something which would become important for deal divers is an accounts page that shows their current status with the book store, perhaps this page could show purchase history as well as money saved or points collected.

News and events

The news and events page would come under a separate page to give room to the books on the homepage.

What we heard from the users

Five usability testing was conducted with a mid-fidelity wireframe prototype, here is a list of the most common feedback received.

1. The design is too busy, I'm not sure where to look.
2. I want to know more about the loyalty program, I want to see what I'm earning.
3. Book information on the product page is confusing and I don't know where to look.
4. The checkout process was confusing and it didn't make sense.

With this feedback, wireframes were reworked and flow was assessed. Below illustrates the current The Book Cow website pages with the proposed new wireframes.

Key recommendations

Home page

Combined both websites into one with books on sale visible from the home page.
Both community elements and book sales elements as well as loyalty program is visible at a glance.
Simplified navigation that is more in line with industry norms to allow customers to find things easily on the website.

Book search page

Giving customers search control by the filter and drop down sort by menu.
Bread crumb along the top to allow customers to easily navigate through the pages.
Better book information hierarchy so it’s easier for the customers to digest at a glance.

Product page

Tidying up the description and other information along the bottom so the information is only there if the customer wants to know more.
Creating a hierarchy of information as per the search page.
Including information such as loyalty programs and estimated shipping dates to give customers more control of their purchase.

Account page

Include relevant information such as invoices and loyalty program accumulation.
Purchase history or similar books/genres may be useful on this page.
Give customers control by allowing preferences and changing their contact details.

Checkout process

Reorder the way information is asked to the customer by relevance, such as Delivery or Pick up before requiring address.
Allow guest check out to avoid customers leaving the online store.
Give customers a purchase summary clearly indicating loyalty program earning.

Where do we go next?

Given the concept project duration of two weeks, there were some areas that were not developed and require much deeper thinking. Some of the key areas are the community aspect of the website, categorisation of books, data sourcing for book reviews and ratings, and deeper consideration of the Cow Dollars loyalty program. These areas should be discussed in the next phase of the development.

In addition to the above points, there are other factors that need to be addressed such as how this website might act as a responsive website. Below are some wireframes of how each page may react on a smaller display.