The Subtle Difference between Coupons at Michaels and Hobby Lobby
Trying to find a mechanism on two similar sites to compare an aspect of Nielsen’s top ten heuristics was hard. I just don’t spend that much time on websites, particularly bad ones. Instead of going with a traditional website for comparison, I chose to compare the web browser to mobile experience of finding coupons at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. Both sites have very straightforward web browsers and I wanted to see how this translated using the internet browser on my phone rather than a native application.
What I noticed immediately was the ability on Michaels’ page to text the coupons to your phone, also that the coupon sizes looked about the size of my mobile screen. On Hobby Lobby’s page, there was no option to text coupons, and the traditional “Weekly Ad” did not look all that interactive.
Next I took out my phone to compare the mobile experience. While both companies have native apps, I wanted to focus on the experience of the occasional shopper, or someone who prefers to not download every available application. Rather than track the process from their homepage, I started by searching specifically for coupons (because I typically only check for their coupons once I’m waiting in line). This is where the heuristic of consistency and standards start to distinguish the experience between Michaels and Hobby Lobby. Nielsen’s heuristic of consistency and standards suggests that users should not have to second guess the meaning of a word, situation or action across the various platforms, and that using established conventions often mitigates this issue.
While searching for Michaels coupon brings me directly to a link for coupons, Hobby Lobby gives me two options that causes me to stop and ask myself which is better (I generally avoid hitting the Google links that have the little Ad indicator, but it was the only option with “Mobile Coupon” in the heading).
After having seen the computer browser coupon search, I saw that Michaels had the same setup for searching for coupons, and that the coupons did in fact fit my phone screen for easy scanning.
The same could not be said of Hobby Lobby. I discovered that the “Mobile Coupon” link went to the same place as the “Weekly Ad and Coupon” and immediately got stuck looking at a “Print coupon” option on my phone. If I’m standing in line at Hobby Lobby looking for a coupon, it’s far too late for me to print one out. As I scrolled down the screen I saw the traditional ad for sales and a coupon, but it wasn’t clear to me that it might work from my phone. I also clicked “Print Coupon” to see what happened and found a coupon that fit my phone, but because the directions were to print it out rather use my phone I didn’t feel confident about its mobile use.
While both Michaels and Hobby Lobby use the same layout conventions on their computer web browser and mobile browser, Hobby Lobby does not adapt to the conventions of mobile browser use which can cause hang ups for the user. It’s not an end-of-the-world situation, but if a user went to check out and found out that this printable coupon could be brought up on a phone and then not scanned, it might be a negative enough experience to cause them to shop at a different craft store in the future.
