Investigation
To shed some light on what was going on here we conducted a short questionnaire with a targeted group of customers.
We discovered 2 primary problems.
- The customers who had used the feature had assumed that it was a way to reserve inventory, once they realized that the feature did not reserve inventory they abandoned it.
- The 2nd group, who hadn’t used it, said that they didn’t have a need to save a shopping cart.
Deeper inquiry revealed that the save shopping cart was out of sync with their workflow. Mostly due the level of user input required (style, color, size, & quantity) for an item to be saved. These customers said, “We don’t have that level of detail until we’re ready to purchase.”
A Proposed Solution
I came forth with a hypothesis; that a Favorites pattern would fit their workflow better. The first action I took was to map out what the page flow would look like for a Favorites feature.
Next, I put together a quick lo-fi prototype and tested it with users we spoke to initially about Saved Shopping Cart. Initially the prototype didn’t permit entering SKU level details (size, color, quantity); this was a problem for users, they wanted to have the option to enter that information. We also got directional guidance on Favorites lists. Below are early explorations on Favorites Menus.
Business Leadership decided to hold off on this feature for future consideration, so I didn't go further with the Favorites design.