Ustoshop
With the Ustoshop app, customers can explore over 20,000 online stores to get the most updated deals and earn cashback rewards.
OVERVIEW
Project Brief
Ustoshop is a cashback app aimed at helping customers earn cashback for their online purchases. In this project, I worked
with a cross-functional team to identify problems and execute the design to transform business needs into viable design solutions.
Industry: E-commerce
My Role: Research, Design
Tools: Sketch, Adobe XD
UNDERSTAND
How does cashback work?
1. Browse
Browse and choose your favorite online retailer (e.g.amazon) or items on our cashback app.
2. Shop
The app will direct you to the
the retailer you choose, shop as usual and finish your purchase.
3. Earn cashback
Retailers will pay us commission for your purchase and we will add this as cashback to your earnings.
THE CHALLENGE
3rd party e-commerce
Instead of direct sales, Ustoshop serves as an affiliate business for over 20000 retail partners. This means
we have no control over a large and diverse product catalogs and its related product info set by retailers.
This poses unique challenges in design.
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RESEARCH
Diving into user problems
To find a viable solution for increasing customer conversion, I worked closely with the PM and marketing team to analyze the user's comments on cashback-related issues in the NPS survey (to see which part frustrates them the most). I categorized and prioritized user problems we need to solve for below.
SURVEYS
1. Lack of understanding of the reward program
34%
2. Hard to track cashback active/earning status
19%
3. The product catalogs are not well-organized
18%
4. Unable to leverage social channel for referral
5. Others
12%
8%
USER COMMENTS
“Okay, earning money back for my purchase sounds great, but how does it work?”
“ It's hard to track my cashback earning status.”
“I'm not sure if I can trust this app with my personal account information.”
“I 'm a new user and there is NO explanations on how to use this!”
“It would be nice to earn money for each friend I refer."
“I tried to search a deal for a laptop, why it returns some irrelevant results ?”
From the research findings related to common user experience, I learned the primary user needs are:​
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Be able to understand the cashback program clearly.
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Be able to track the cashback earnings conveniently.
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Need a well-defined product catalog to discovery deals.
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Be able to leverage social channels for deal discovery and referral programs.
PERSONA
Consumer behavior
I created the following personas to help our team empathize with our target users and design for their
unique buying habits.
Tim - Rational Buyer & Brand loyalist
“I need a sunglasses for driving and I look really cool with this ray-ban glasses, I'll buy it.”
Behavior & Needs
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For users like Tim, shopping is a mission, they prefer a straightforward shopping experience.
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They are not that interested in deals, they only open shopping apps when they need to buy something.
Emma - Bargain Hunter & Explorer
"I like this hat, maybe I need to buy a new dress to match it. Oh! Jeans are on sale today, I'll take a look."
Behavior & Needs
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For users like Emma, shopping is a journey and leisure, their shopping journey is discovery-oriented.
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They are more curious about exploring new listings and discounts offers.
JOURNEY MAPPING
Empathize with users' shopping journey
I created the user journey map to help our team seek design opportunities, and get deep insights into our users' feelings when they are accomplishing particular tasks in their shopping journey.
Design decisions
To properly scope this project and not try to tackle a bunch of problems at once, our team categorized the research findings into themes, synthesize and prioritize the findings to inform our design decisions.
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Demonstrate product value
showing the value of our app before our users
really have to commit to it.
Keep user informed
Help users understand what is happening in their shopping through appropriate feedback.
Improve user engagement
Leverage social media influence to increase conversion and retention.
Improve deal discovery
Refine navigation and search to facilitate deep exploration and deal discovery.
USER FLOW
Communicate the solution
After setting the design goals, I created the following user flow to communicate where and what changes needed to be made with the stakeholders.
PROTOTYPING
Validate design concepts
In the early design phase, I created some animated mockups to communicate my design rationale and
validate design concepts with the stakeholders. VIEW DETAILS.
Onboarding
Demonstrating product value
To establish trust and convey our product values at first glance, the onboarding screen explains the major product features and benefits, and demonstrate our reliability by showing trusted partners and safety precautions.
Homepage
Search & Explore
To facilitate product and deal discovery, other than search and explore through catalogs, they can simply click to their favorite stores to get the most updated deals and earn cashback rewards.
Purchase
Create seamless shopping experience
To keep users informed in their shopping journey, they can get price alerts by subscribing to the updated price of their favorite items. Moreover, a "Wishlist" feature was created for users to save their favorite deals.
Share
Social engagement
Users can share their referral links on their social media and earn commissions when their friends make a purchase through their referral link.
Design Deliverables
1. Homepage: To increase conversion, the homepage was refined to give more exposure to the hot deals, items, and provide multiple ways for users to explore the cashback deals.
Homepage
Category
Stores
2. Purchase: Users will be notified of the cashback deal status while they are being direct to the retailer, and they save can access their favorite products, stores, and deals by using the "favorite feature".
Item Page
Transition Page
Favorite
3. Cashback Earning Status: users can turn on notifications to check their cashback earning status, this feature does not only aim to keep users informed but also draw them back into using our app.
Turn On Notification
Notification
Personal Page
4. Social Engagement: We are trying to build connections between users through the "post feature", where users can share their product reviews, purchase links, and referral links on social media.
Post Page
Post Detail
Share
DESIGN STYLE GUIDE
Establish consistency
Impact
This app was launched and the design was greatly appreciated by the stakeholders. Shortly after the product launch, we saw a rapid increase in customer conversion rates. I'm extremely proud of the progress we've made as a team. Below are the user reviews from the apple app store:
REFLECTIONS
Things I learned
Align UX with business goals:
For any digital product, UX designers should think about how efficient is the user experience at delivering the business objectives.
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Design Prioritization:
Due to the tight schedule, we had many team discussions about the task prioritization, which help us a lot in solving the most critical issues and meeting the deadlines.
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Teamwork:
I learned how to pitch my ideas confidently and communicate with different teams effectively. Team communication helped me to understand the needs and concerns from different perspectives.