Introduction
Pinterest is my go-to resource for any design inspiration, be it product design or styling my house. I love this product because it allows me to explore the abundance of creative ideas and eventually to craft my own. I always felt it is easy to use and helped me to attain my goals. However, recently I came across few usability issues that caused confusion and stifled my discoveries. I am curious to know if other users are facing the same or similar concerns.
Hypothesis
- Organize - used to organize the boards and pins the way you want
Pain point: It is not findable and behaves inconsistently within the boards. Often confused with the edit CTA
Visual search:
- Lens - used to search for similar items simply pointing at anything and capturing the image
Pain point: It is subdued within the search bar and hardly noticeable. It doesn’t feel tactile and is not persistent when text search is activated - Instant ideas - used to search similar ideas and items within an image by zooming into them
Pain point: It is not noticeable and the interaction is unclear - Shop the look - allows you to shop items you see within an image
Pain point: It is not noticeable and it overlaps with instant ideas
However, I believe all these features are both helpful and useful for users not only to discover, compare and eventually to make purchasing decisions. So, I wanted to know how can you remove the ambiguity around these features and make it salient so users can be delighted.
Objective
- Test my hypothesis
- Understand discoverability issues for all three visual search features
- Understand findability issue with "organize"
- Learn about the ambiguity around functionality
- Suggest possible solutions and validate
Process
My proto-persona
To stay unbiased and knowing that Pinterest users are wide and general, I created a proto-persona with patterns and behavior a possible Pinterest user could have.
Here is the info on Pinterest's Demographics.
Research
I conducted guerrilla testing with 3 new and 3 existing users. I chose these users to understand how they are engaging with the product and wanted to make sure is my hypothesis is the same or different across these different type of users. 5 usability tasks were given, first two tasks began with the core objective of Pinterest, how users discover ideas, collect and organize. Organize was emphasized to understand the findability concerns. The last three tasks were focused to learn about the discoverability issues with visual search.
Example of the Task: Imagine you just moved into a new condo and looking for inspirations to furnish. Look for a couch and pick two favorites?
Analysis
Affinity Mapping
Through usability tasks, key insights were driven for all 6 users. Using the key insights, and with affinity mapping, similar patterns emerged.
2X2 Table
Once similar patterns were recognized, I then categorized the pain points into priorities that are important to both users and business.
Define
Results confirmed users were facing the same findability and discoverability usability issues.
Ideate
User Flow
Organize // Before:
Organize // After:
Prototype
Validation
In order to validate my hypothesis, for both and after versions, the same usability tasks were given to similar audiences (new and existing users) to avoid bias.
Before redesign
After redesign
Click here to view prototype
TL; DR
Pinterest is the platform to discover ideas, inspirations, recipes and much more. Ideas can be saved, organized and shared. Features such as Lens, shop the look and Instant ideas help you to discover ideas efficiently. My hypothesis is currently they are not discoverable. Also, the organize feature is not intuitive and lacks findability. Since I love Pinterest so much, I know if these problems are to be solved users can have a seamless experience. To validate my hypothesis, I did guerrilla usability testing to understand if similar or any unknown problems exist for users. The usability results confirmed my hypothesis, so I re-designed these features and validated with a high-fidelity clickable prototype. The results varied, so further iterations and testing are required for possible solutions.
Thoughts: The experience was awesome. I had so much fun doing all the explorations, ideating and trying to find the best possible solutions. I learned that today's best possible solutions will not be the same tomorrow.
Note: I do not work for Pinterest and not affiliated with them.
I give props to Zac Halbert and my participants.