Becoming a UX Detective — the importance of evidence-based design

UX design can be challenging, not only are we obliged to design a prototype, but we also need to validate the designs that we have prepared. Time management is critical, provided the importance of making sure every product designed can be completed within the planned timeline. In addition, the designs must be of high-quality so users can use them easily.

Regardless of the tight deadline, testing and validation are two of the most important phases in product design. At Tokopedia, we worked on an affiliate marketing product “Tokopedia ByMe”, a product that connects sellers with buyers, where the buyer will receive a commission if he successfully promotes an item. Working on this product required me to go through a long testing procedure.

The design of Tokopedia ByMe was completed in a relatively short time. The team and I decided on what goals we aimed from the seller and buyer side. We started with a competitive analysis of similar products to discover best practices in the market. Based on the results of the analysis and our further discussion, we proceed on creating the first version of the prototype.

Tokopedia ByMe Prototype V1

In spite of the limited time, we still made sure that the Prototype still had to go through a validation process to measure its quality and to assess users’ understanding. Therefore, we decided to employ a short validation method, in which our findings could still be relevant and valuable to revamp the prototype.

Our validation aimed to answer the following questions:

1. Do users understand what Tokopedia ByMe is and how it works?
2. Can users create content on Tokopedia ByMe? If so, what sort of contents do they want to create?
3. How important it is to create content and share products according to users?
4. What are users’ expectations of the ‘Post’ button and how do they share the content they have created?
5. What are the pain points users face when creating content and how do they solve them?

To answer those questions, we initiated a mini qualitative and quantitative study by running a guerilla test and sent out Usabilityhub link.

Qualitative (Guerilla)

Assisted by a UX researcher, we conducted a guerilla test among approximately 10 users at a nearby shopping mall, asked them to try Tokopedia ByMe and observed their behavior when sharing information about the product.

Quantitative (UsabilityHub)

We utilized UsabilityHub, where users can try the prototype online, through mobile phone or desktop. It allows us to analyze which parts of the prototype users first clicked, parts they liked and their responses to the design. 200 valid responses managed to be collected through this method within only two days.

We completed the entire validation process within three days. The results showed that:

1. Do users understand what Tokopedia ByMe is and how it works?
2. Can users create content on Tokopedia ByMe? If so, what sort of contents do they want to create?
3. How important it is to create content and share products according to users?

With these findings, we made a second iteration of the prototype.

Tokopedia ByMe Prototype V2

The improvements in this new version include:

1. Eliminate the onboarding page to decrease the steps to create content and placing it in the Explore banner.
2. Simplify the form to increase the experience of content creation.
3. Describing the benefits offered by Tokopedia ByMe on the explore page.

The new prototype’s result was satisfying — the number of users who created content on Tokopedia ByMe doubled because of the easier creation process and the benefits that had been directly conveyed in it. This experience makes me believe that no matter how busy UX designers are, user research and validation are the crucial phases in product design. In the end, a great product should be able to meet users expectations and needs.