Alex shares with us some fascinating insights into the process they follow at Zappos, the research methods and UX tools they use, how they decide what to test with users vs what to MVT.
Alex also shares with us a conversion challenge his team faced and how they overcame it. We also learn about his background, what makes him tick and his top tips for you.
I am a customer research professional who applies his Social Psychology background and his passion for research, design, and innovation to the software industry. My professional goal is to help teams create remarkable products and services which make people’s lives easier and more enjoyable.
Currently I am leading UX Research and Web Analytics for the Zappos Family of Companies. My work includes both hands-on research for all the Zappos online properties as well as mentoring and team development.
In previous positions, I was responsible for research and usability of the products and services for companies like TurboTax (Intuit), State Farm Insurance, and the Active Network. I have over 15 years of relevant experience – 5 years of academic research and over 10 years of customer research in the software industry. I received a PhD in Experimental Social Psychology from Clark University. My areas of research include: defining and measuring emotions, individual differences, usability, and consumer segmentation.
During my academic career, I developed and taught college-level courses in Research Methods, Statistics, and Social Psychology. I have numerous presentations at professional conferences, several publications in peer-reviewed journals, and several patent applications.
The research team is part of the larger UX team. As a UX team we follow agile, cross-functional process which involves Design Thinking, rapid prototyping, concept testing, iterative and benchmark usability, and a variety of other methods along the creative and development product development journey.
We do research along the full cycle of: problem definition —> idea generation —> interface design —> product release —> back to problem definition.
We combine both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Qualitative for idea generation and to understand the “why”
Quantitative to understand the “what” and to quantify opportunities and issues
Lots. We do not release anything before A/B testing it.
In the idea generation stage and the concept development stage talking to customers and doing iterative research makes sense because it is cheap to start over and make changes until a good design is developed.
If the change has to do with actual customer behavior, we A/B test – actual behavior which ultimately leads to conversion is the best indicator of success. Asking people what they would or would not do is silly.
We discovered some legacy “error” messages we were surfacing to costumers. Those were ominous-looking and had harsh and non-factual language, e.g. “Fix the following errors” when the customers had not done anything wrong. We redesigned the messages to be much more helpful and even apologetic on our part.
Continuing to learn about what makes people tick and how to create new experiences which positively affect the lives of millions of people. Breaking barriers and silos between Marketing Research, User Research, Web Analytics, and so on. Mentoring less experienced colleagues.
Break down barriers and silos between Marketing Research, User Research, Web Analytics, and so on. Those are based on archaic organizational structures and make no sense from the point of view of the customer.