This presentation was designed to convey: 1. General research on the search user experience 2. Specific results from usability testing and competitive usability testing 3. Show product managers and designers which design patterns and solutions will help improve lead conversions and maintain a good user experience

1. UX Research Report – Kelley Howell, UX Research
Manager
LEAD CONVERSIONS
IT’S ALL IN THE DETAIL PAGE

2. Introductory remarks
 Part of “Understanding Search Experience”
series
 Explore a portion of search experience
 What, how, and why users do what they do
 Use quantitative and qualitative data

3. Goal for part 1 and part 2
What Questions
 Close analysis of user
patterns on detail page
 What is our baseline
understanding of how
people use the page?
 What do people do?
Why Questions
 Existing research
 Known cognitive
abilities & limitations
shape search behavior
 Specific goals, needs,
desires, values

4. All in the detail(s page)
 What’s our ultimate goal for our site?
 Marketplace: we drive consumer leads to
customers
 Do this by driving consumers to detail page
 Do we have other goals?
 Important to keep in our goals in mind, even
while we study our users and their goals

5. What users do

6. Summary:
 A look of high level lead rates
 Focus on submitted leads and engagement

7. Submitted Leads

8. Lead Rate - Last Month
Portal
Redacted
mDot
Redacted

9. Year over Year Lead Rate
 Redacted

10. mDot Lead Rate
 Redacted

11. FS Lead Rate – Last Month
Portal mDot
redacte
d
redacte
d

12. For Sale – Lead Rate
 Redacted

13. For Sale mDot- Lead rate
 Redacted

14. The following slides redacted:
 Avg Lead Rate Per Profile Type
 Average Rental Page Lead rate

15. May not be leads, but are indicators of user
engagement and activity
Engagement

16. The following metrics were
redacted:

17. The following slides redacted:
 Bounce rate, major pages
 Average Time on Page
 Avg Mortgage Calculator Usage Rate
 Sharing Links Avg Rate – Detail Page
 Sticky Header – Averaged Rates
 MyAccount Signups – portal and mobile - Avg
Rate

18. Redacted
Top takeaways

19.  Research lit – a backgrounder (and
caveat)
 Patterns of user behavior – a demo
 Describing and explaining user behavior
Part 2:

20. Existing research
 Ground in existing body of research on how
people search
 Historically, tended to ignore behavior on content
page
 Seen as less important than search mechanics
 Saw decision-making at detail page level as
rational

21. Result?
 Viewed web as a place for brochures
 Or, likened them to department or specialty
stores
 Static flow diagrams to conceive of search
process
 Didn’t see content as place to influence
conversions

22. Mad men hangover
 Lackluster interest in
detail page experience
due to the stick-drive-
convert model
Stick: build brand
awareness
Drive: drive consumers to
retailer
Convert: cross fingers
and hope customer

23. Upshot of the hangover
 Tended to ignore development of an online
equivalent to merchandising

24. Hangover: Home as hub
approach
 Home as central hub
 Categorize activities
and departments to
create secondary
hubs
 Design home page to
drive consumers to
those pages

25. Remedy: content-out approach
 Valuable content =
core
 Figure out where
people are coming
from
 Use links along that
path to get people to
the content

26. Detail page: http://goo.gl/i41MQg
117 elements
Content Inventory:
 Item
 Page Region
 Business Need
 User Need
 Functionality
 Module
 Global or Local Nav

27. eCommerce & conversion
optimization
 Growth of ecommerce sites
 End of internet-as-talking-dog era
 Rise of UX-as-differentiator
 Stick-drive-convert model in decline
Growing body of research on how
to influence consumer behavior

28. Marketplace apps (web and phone)
 Marketplace – creates a platform for bringing
buyers and sellers together
 Search behavior can be different on
marketplace sites than it is on eCommerce
 eCommerce lessons don’t always translate

29. BUT! - still useful
 Avg cart abandonment rate:
65.23%
 Avg conversion rate: 2.13%
 The higher the average order
value (AOV), lower the
product page effectiveness
rate
 AOV < $50, effectiveness
rate is 25%.
 AOV > $2000, effectiveness
rate is 4-5%

30. Remember: content is king
 Detail page is a type of content page
 Tended to think of detail page more like a
section in a department store
 In a marketplace, we don’t have control over
content
 Tended to think of content as reading material
 By reconsidering them as content pages, freer

31. Understand what they are doing better and
figuring out why they are doing it
User research

32. Summary of user research, 1
 Follow all a similar pattern when first using homes.com:
verifying validity of results is primary goal
 When familiar with the site, they don’t worry about verifying
validity. They trust the site already.
 Are annoyed by lead form CTAs (verbally); behaviorally,
they use them
 New users: Appear to use F pattern for quick skimming
 Once engaged, use Z pattern for analyzing
 They do not see the string of data at the top of a listing –
price, beds, bath
 See photos, but expect more scannable information on

33. Summary of user research, 2
 Homes.com is generic name; users suspicious that it
might not yield valid results (want information scent they
can trust)
 Users notice local agents, see as positive sign
 Users want to know about the area to which they’re
moving
 Users don’t notice map search when asked to search in a
specific area
 Users are sometimes confused by the contact forms
- lack of verbiage (contact)
- Sometimes confused about variety of contact forms

34. How do we understand the user’s
behavior?
Put user research in context

35. Search basics – a review
 Users  Not just new to
domain and
technology in
general
 New to our site

36. Verify, then trust – search results
How our users behave
1. Perform search
2. Search results: skim and seek information scent
(e.g., search terms, pictures, etc.)
3. Relevancy threshold – when results seem valid
and worth investigating further
4. Back to top
5. Begin second skim

37. Verify, then trust – detail page
 A neophyte to our search will continue a
verification process,
 Is verifying that it’s worth investigating detail
pages
 Repeats a similar process to SRP verification
 Scans for information scent to know if on right
track

38. Verify, then trust – detail page
(cont’d)
1. Quick up and down scan of 1 or more page
2. Verifying information scent on detail page
3. If scent is still relevant, will either go back to
beginning of SRP to search in earnest OR
remain on detail, go back to top and
reexamine page.

39. Information scent trumps accuracy
 Users always look for clues to see if they’re on
right track
 Too few or too many results aren’t an obstacle
 Number of clicks isn’t a problem
 People stop searching when information scent is
weak
 Blocker: strong scent that isn’t verified (distrusts

40. Thrill of the search?
“Search results don’t have to bring you to the
final page. They have to bring you to the page
with even better information.” – Jared Spool
For many users, this sense of getting closer and
closer, more and more information, can produce
a thrill of anticipation that is, in and of itself,
rewarding.

41. Patterns of looking
Guttenberg Diagram
F pattern
Z pattern
Zig zag Z pattern
Golden Triangle

42. Gutenberg Diagram:
How people scan text heavy blocks
 Belief that designs that
work with this pattern
can leverage natural
reading “gravity”
patterns

43. F pattern

44. F pattern
Jakob Nielsen:
“Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web
pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes
followed by a vertical stripe.”
 People don’t’ read every word
 First two paragraphs get most attention
 Scan first few words of first 2 paragraphs, then
drop off

48. Examples
LA Times -
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsno
w/la-na-congress-immigration-hearing-
20141202-story.html
Time.com -
http://time.com/3613795/detroit-hit-by-massive-
power-outage/

49. Z Pattern

50. Z Pattern
 People use it on less reading heavy text
 Point #1 (launch point - branding)
 Point #2: scans through to way point landing
 Center: fallow
 Point #3: fallow waypoint
 Point #4: eye comes to rest

51. Examples

52. Zig Zag: Z pattern variation

53. Conclusion

54. In sum…
1. Detail pages are content pages
2. Design from content out
3. There are well-known patterns people use to
search and engage with results, including
content pages
4. So far, our consumers tend to behave as
expected

55. Strategies for addressing user search
patterns on our content (detail) page
Next up

56. To help users validate results:
 Leave information scent: trigger words, images
 Create information hierarchy of most important
trigger words

57. F pattern solutions
 Tends to be used on content heavy sites
 User scans in vertical line DOWN left side of
page
 Looks for key words and points of interest
 Gravitates to images and first few words of first
two paragraphs
 When they find something interesting, they read

58. Optimizing F pattern scanning
 Work with the F pattern
 Force user to stop and slow down – come
technique in rhetorical writing
 Use eyecatching deign -- a break that forces
people out of the pattern of looking
 Provide visually interesting elements that can
people people scanning toward engagement

59. Best Practices
1. Background: separate background to keep
the user's sight within your framework
2. Point #1: prime location for important content,
especially for branding.
3. Point #2: Place next attention grabbing CTA
4. Center of page: slideshow, video, large
image. Use to break up top and bottom
sections

60. Best Practices
1. Point #3: optimize this line with thumbnails,
icons, trail to lead people to final CTA
2. Point #4: Primary CTA because it’s where
user’s eye comes to rest
3. Z pattern can be repeated across page
4. Can extend the Z Pattern throughout the

61. Z Pattern
Good for simple design
Helps organize key elements
Used for good storytelling, to follow path of Z

62. Working with Z pattern content
 Complex content that needs to be read won’t
help people skim the information better
 Z pattern can bring order and make it easier to
skim over information displayed in chunks.

63. Z Pattern Examples

64. What’s next?
 Once user is on the page and we’ve optimized
for F or Z pattern scanning, what’s next?
 We have a lot of information, how do we keep
user interested with next level of information
scent?
 How do we know what they are looking for?
 How do we organize the information
optimally?

65. For more research-based
insights about Redacted users,
check out the UX insights
portal:
Thoughts?
Questions?