eBay — a UX case study
By Vivian Nguyen, Eli Jaramillo, Richard Ram (Group 21)
Overview
eBay is a global e-commerce website that has revolutionized the way we buy items online for the past two decades. Their online catalog consists of various goods of limited edition or quantity and at cheap prices. They are listed for sale by individuals and companies. They’re also known for their auctions, which allow users to snatch great deals on products that would normally cost them more!
Study’s Purpose
We did a UX case study on eBay’s desktop interface to identify and characterize usability issues within the site, based on high-level goals we had in mind. This was done as quarter-long project at UC Irvine for Informatics 132: Project in Human Computer Interaction.
Methods
Interviews
- 6 participants, 30-45 minutes each
- Asked users about their online shopping experiences with eBay and other e-commerce sites
Surveys
- 81 participants, 5-10 minutes each
- An online survey sent via text message and social media
- Interested in the demographics, likes/dislikes, usage, and habits of e-commerce users
Usability Tests
- 6 participants, 30-50 minutes each
- 5 user tasks + post-test questionnaire each
- Can first-time and non-users of eBay successfully:
- Find a product?
- Determine the trustworthiness of a seller?
- Contact the seller?
- Make a purchase?
- List an item for sale?
Heuristic Evaluation
- 3 participants (each group member), 2-3 hours each
- Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics:
- Visibility of system status
- Match between system and the real world
- User control and freedom
- Consistency and standards
- Error prevention
- Recognition rather than recall
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- Aesthetic and minimalist design
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
- Help and documentation
Competitive Analysis
In order to devise noticeable improvements to eBay’s UX, we felt it was necessary to compare it to some of its competitors. You may happen to recognize some of their names and features!
Our Focal Product
eBay — https://www.ebay.com
Functionality/Feature Set
- Auctions: Allows users to bid for products & sellers to make as much profit as possible
- My eBay: Central hub for users to manage their sale postings, watchlists, private messages, purchase history, and recently viewed items
- Followers/Following: Allows users to “follow” sellers and be notified of new postings or updates on current postings
User Base
- Target audience: Mass market
- User group: 20’s-60’s, all genders
- Shipping: Worldwide, dependent on seller
- Technological experience: Little experience needed
- Context of use: Mostly used in private
Direct Competitors
Amazon — https://www.amazon.com
Amazon is a global tech giant that focuses on areas in e-commerce, cloud computing, AI, and streaming services. Their e-commerce site offers a wide-range of products that can be shipped out internationally, and often, these products come from trusted sellers of established companies.
Functionality/Feature Set
- Amazon Fresh: Amazon’s delivery service for fresh food
- Amazon Prime: Amazon’s streaming service that allows subscribed users to watch a limited number of movies/TV shows
- Amazon Audible: Amazon’s audiobook service that allows users to purchase digital books with audio
User Base
- Target audience: Mass market
- User group: 20’s-60’s, all genders
- Shipping: Worldwide
- Technological experience: Little experience needed
- Context of use: Mostly used in private
Indirect Competitors
Craigslist — https://www.craigslist.org/
Craigslist is a text-heavy, online advertisement interface that promotes the sale and purchase of items, jobs, and housing posts. As it is very location-based, small communities are embedded in the site.
Functionality/Feature Set
- Offline Bargaining: Allows buyers to bargain with sellers off-line through the seller’s contact information posted with each listing
- Forums: Allows users to join discussion forums and online chats with other users
- Job Postings: Allows users to post and find jobs local to their area or within a certain mile radius
User Base
- Target audience: Mass market
- User group: 30’s-60’s, all genders
- Shipping: Varies, dependent on the seller
- Technological experience: Little experience needed
- Context of use: Mostly used in private
Understanding Our Users
Ages 20’s to 60’s
- As of mid-2019, 32% are between the ages 35–49, 29% between the ages 50–69, 18% between the ages 25–34, 14% between the ages 18–24, and 7% over the age of 65 (“All You Need to Know About eBay”).
- Younger users —Is eBay of relevance to them?
- Older users —What are the changes eBay has experienced overtime?
Females and males
- 51% male vs. 49% female of eBay users (Gaille)
College students or graduates
- 1/4 of eBay users —an associate’s degree or higher (Gaille)
Low to middle class income
- 58% of eBay users —a household income of $40,000+ (Gaille)
- Wanted to know whether eBay’s cheap prices & sale promotions attracted users
Diverse backgrounds
- 180 million+ eBay users across 190 different markets globally (Oberlo)
- Interested in seeing if opinions and stereotypes towards eBay differed by a person’s location or ethnic/cultural background
Zero to medium eBay experience
- Average to avid online shoppers
- Know the basic features of an e-commerce site
Possible stakeholders — COVID-19 pandemic
- More time indoors → more online shopping. People are opting to have items that are typically bought in-store be delivered to their homes.
- Temporary or permanent unemployment → less online shopping. Some are working less hours or were recently laid off, so they may not be spending as much money online.
Creating Our Personas
We created personas to represent our user population based on our interview responses and survey statistics—a female undergraduate student in her 20’s, a male working professional in his 30’s, and a stay-at-home mother in her 40’s.
Some of the reasoning behind this persona:
- Age: 22 —66.7% of survey respondents were in their 20’s.
- Goals: “She likes to read reviews before purchasing.” —70% of survey respondents chose reviews as the information they would like to know about an item before purchasing.
- Bio: “For her, online shopping is convenient and cost-saving.” —Several interviewees prefer online shopping over in-store shopping because it allows them to purchase from the comfort of their home.
- Frustrations: “She finds the shipping process to be slow.” — Many survey respondents mentioned that “shipping could have been faster”, “takes long”, and “some items came late.”
Results of UX Evaluations
Compiling our results from the user tasks and evaluations, we concluded that eBay could improve the following:
Inconsistent with E-commerce Site Standards
- “List item” button on the sale listing page — takes users to payment methods instead of immediately posting the listing
- Dynamic auto-fill for Sell search bar — enters a different page to enforce instead of staying on the same page
- Excessive buyer information for viewing under a seller’s profile — what, when, how much, and at what price a buyer purchased from a particular seller
Lengthy Information
- Irrelevant content for sellers on the Sell home page — In fact, when asked to create a sale listing, more than half of our user task participants had trouble when directed to this page.
- Endless text with several external links and no clear organization on the Sell’s Help articles and FAQ’s
Inconsistent Visual Design
- No consistent theme across the site— lack of efficient use and choice of color, unusually large text, inefficient use of negative space, no separation indicators
- Different item descriptions between all sellers — makes the product page appear messy and cluttered
- The majority of our interview and survey participants mentioned they preferred Amazon over eBay for purposes including style reasons.
Inefficient Display of Features
- Repetitive help links which redirect to the same Help page — unnecessary
- “Sell” link on the homepage — Appears minuscule compared to other features despite being a major component of eBay
- No description for Auction vs. Buy It Now features — According to our user tasks, 4/6 participants were confused between their difference.
4 Redesign Goals
Process
- Each group member created 3 sketches for each feature of potential redesigns.
- Then, after comparing and combining the sketches, we created a prototype of each feature using Axure.
- Finally, we created a full mock up of the design.
1. Recreating the Sell’s Search Bar
Starting on the sellers search page, the search bar on the top caused 83% of the user tasks to have issues. We wanted to maintain the same flow and redesign the search bar to be more consistent with eBay and fix the usability issues.
Consistent Design — Modeled after the search bar on eBay’s homepage, the new search bar is consistent across the website. The dynamic auto-fill no longer switches to a different window, but stays on the current page. This is to ensure that users will have familiarity with the search functionality.
Visibility — The search button, originally inside the search bar, is moved to the outside with the eBay button design. Its text is changed from “Go” to “Search.” Furthermore, the “COVID-19 Update” link from the header to the bottom of the header image as its own button.
Descriptive — The header above the search bar now reads “Start Selling”, the instructions inside the search bar now read “What do you want to sell?”, and the text underneath the search bar also describes the functionality in more detail to appear more intuitive to a first-time seller.
2. Minimizing the Amount of Information
Below the search bar, the rest of the Sell homepage contains a significant amount of information that does not pertain to a user selling an item. This was also the first page we noticed that used a header with “anchor tags” to navigate. We found this to be inconsistent and unnecessary.
Reduced Information — The current Sell page is long and has content that does not assist the user if they have any issues with selling. We removed all of the text and added links to new pages to display this information. This reduces the amount of scrolling the user has to do to navigate.
Removed Sub-Header — Removing the use of “anchor tags,” we instead added these as links under Additional Resources. This creates more familiarity to current users and keeps all the information that was previously on this page.
3. Developing A Consistent Theme
eBay is a complex application, and with more complexity, users need more assistance. The current Help page includes various colors and style designs throughout the page, making it difficult to search through.
Minimalistic — The header image is simple, like the one on the Sell home page, and the search bar is consistent with the rest of the website. Each section is clearly labeled and separated. The icons match those throughout the website with a coherent color scheme for a more clean appearance.
Quick Topics — The “Browse Help Topics ”section allows users to quickly access articles, which saves time searching through hundreds of articles.
Additional Help — The “Need More Help?” section provides different ways to contact other users or eBay’s customer service. Good customer service is necessary to every e-commerce website.
4. Including an Auction vs. Buy It Now Page
The feature that makes eBay stand out above other competitors is their auction feature. However, the website does a poor job of describing this feature and helping users learn how it works, which affected participants in our user tasks. We aim to adjust the activation and create a page that compares and contrasts the two features.
Helpful Information — Auction vs. Buy It Now information is now easy to find and simple to compare the differences. In addition, users can ask for more information by contacting experts. The information is simple and easy to read.
Nearby Help — On the Listing page, there is a section that allows the user to turn on and off the Auction vs. Buy It Now features, as well as a quick link to the Auction vs. Buy It Now page in the top right corner.
Final Thoughts
Due to the current pandemic, it was difficult to conduct the user tasks and interviews. This led to a narrow collection of data from a small group of people. If we were able to find a broader user base, we think some of the data would have been varied and more accurate.
Overall, this assignment has taught us a lot about teamwork and the process of redesigning an application improve its usability.
Acknowledgements
Vivian Nguyen led and managed the study. She initiated group discussion and assigned tasks to group members. She also contributed to several parts of the project, including but not limited to the creation and conducting of interviews and surveys, usability tests, and post-test questionnaires.
Eli Jaramillo contributed to powerpoint presentations, discussions, conducted interviews and usability tests as part of the research project.
Richard Ram assisted with creating powerpoint presentations, joining discussions, conducting interviews, and performing user tasks.
Despite the circumstances, our amazing family and friends participated in our interviews, surveys, and user tasks. A special thank you to Professor Bietz who showed his generosity throughout the project, regarding deadlines and our questions/concerns. He also provided us with the necessary resources to complete this project.
References
“All You Need to Know About EBay (Infographic) 16best.Net.” 16best.Net, 27 Apr. 2020, www.16best.net/blog/all-need-know-ecommerce-giant-ebay-com/.
Nielsen, Jakob. “10 Heuristics for User Interface Design.” Nielsen Norman Group, 24 Apr. 1994, www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/.
Gaille, Brandon. “21 Provocative Ebay Demographics.” BrandonGaille.com, 14 Jan. 2017, brandongaille.com/21-provocative-ebay-demographics/.
Lin, Ying. “10 EBay Statistics You Need to Know in 2020 [Infographic].” Oberlo, 16 Mar. 2020, www.oberlo.com/blog/ebay-statistics.
