Returns on eBay

Problem Statement

Returns on eBay was designed to be one experience, smart, on brand, simple, familiar and to ultimately resolve problems in an efficient way. We have observed that returns on eBay isn't meeting eBay's experience principles and fails to meet overall user expectations, which is causing increased calls to eBay support and user drop off while making a return.

How might we design a new returns experience so that eBay users feel confident in making returns on eBay and experience a seamless end-to-end experience?

Design 🖊️

Now that the team developed a focused problem statement and fully understood the problems we were solving for and our primary users, it was time to diverge on ideation and explore ideas. Each designer designed and tested their own concepts, and we met 2-3 times per week to share ideas and findings.

Working with constraints

1. Design guidelines

A transition to a new design system was happening, so I had to work with both old and new design guidelines, causing inconsistency.

2. Business goals

Much of the culture is optimized for operational performance, with a focus on short term goals and established goals.

3. Time and Budget

Short and differing deadlines caused a rush to complete designs on time. Further, funding from stakeholders has been a challenge.

4. User learning curve

Users have been used to a certain design and experience for many years. Innovation and a new experience can hinder learnability and overall experience.

Mapping out the timeline

Affinity Mapping

Sketch out ideas

Mockups

I used Sketch for all designs and created 6 different design concepts for making a return on eBay.

Prototypes and User Testing

I tested 6 different prototypes with 30 users who have all made a return on eBay. The type of research conducted was moderated usability testing, a/b testing and surveys for feedback. My goal was to understand how users interact with new elements in the returns flow, how long it took users to make a return, identify pain points, look for areas of delight and draw conclusions that will help me and the team craft the most intuitive and clear returns experience.

Prototype 1

1. What users liked

Guidance, clarity of info, reduced cognitive load, visuals and colors

2. What users wanted to see

More intuitive, ability to add dates to calendar, flat design, and improved timeline/progress indicator

3. Conclusions

While this returns flow improves a user's understanding of information being presented to them, in addition to being more visually appealing than the current design, we need to focus on a more intuitive experience that effortlessly guides users through making a return on eBay

Prototype 6

1. What users liked

Main actions along the bottom, feels more natural and easy to use, "Gives me more choice as a user," and feels on brand while having a clean design

2. What users wanted to see

Could have improved hierarchy, focus more on the timeline, more guidance and messaging, and think about the whole experience.

3. Conclusions

This prototype is moving in the right direction as it has improved navigation, on-brand visuals, more choice for users and is more intuitive. However, users wanted a better layout, more guidance and an end-to-end experience

Solution (Part 1) 🎉

One of the most important parts of my design process for this project included testing and a continuous iteration process. I was able to collect valuable feedback and data from research participants and several members of the broader design team. Iterations were made at each stage directly based on feedback from testing and input from designers, engineers and PMs. After converging on our designs and findings, we produced the following solution for a new eBay returns experience.

Clear, Simple and Convenient

The future of returns on eBay is one that's easy to use, understands a diverse set of users and is quick and simple to learn.

Offer users delight

The new returns experience has a clean interface that knows user needs, is intuitive and offers delight. What if after the seller has accepted the return request, eBay helps the buyer find a local post office? Can't physically go to a post office? eBay can help you schedule a free USPS pickup while keeping you within the returns flow.

Reducing cognitive load

This principle comes through in a number of ways in the new design, and it's important to note that we reduced cognitive load through UI, copy, the number of steps and overall information architecture.

One experience

Offer users multiple ways to track their returns. One experience is an experience principle for eBay, and why should it stop on mobile? One experience can include different platforms, expansion to track returns within Facebook messenger and more. The possibilities are endless, but the experience should remain the same no matter how a user interacts with eBay.

Design decisions

1. Visual

New company style guide, hierarchy of info through size, color and layout of elements, kept image of item being returned, visuals/colors offer delight, different sizes, colors and styles (Importance of info, readability)

2. UX

Guidance throughout the return, ease of entry into a return, 1 main action per screen, user control

3. Interaction

Easily perform important tasks, decrease number of actions and considering multiple ways to hold a phone

Business Challenges 🙃

One of the main focus areas of the redesign was challenging wait times. eBay garnered very little assurance in how quick the returns process will be for users. A typical eBay returns process can be 15+ days, and all the way up to a 60 day maximum. Users see no guarantee of times when knowing control rests in the hands of sellers whims on when to process their request and refund. As a team, we recommended changing these wait times. However, given the time and level of effort this would take, managers were not willing to begin the process of changing eBay policies on wait times.

This put the design team to a halt because of an almost month long debate about this challenge. The decision was to adjust the perceived wait time for the users through messaging and notifications. Currently, users express a need for more communication from eBay and the other user involved in the transaction. By designing messaging and notifications, in addition to determining when and why users will see them, our goal was to reduce the amount of time-based friction users were experiencing. However, this also meant that we needed to revisit certain parts of our user flows to account for this change.

Please find additional stakeholder feedback below.

Solution (Part 2) 🎉

We borrowed many ideas and concepts from our first solution, but our revised approach focused on reducing complexity and ensuring users had choice and clear instructions on what just happened and what happens next. We also revisited the friction areas users expressed (i.e. guidance, general design, lack of communication and not intuitive) and added elements throughout the returns flow that directly improved these areas.

Solution (Video)

Measuring Success 📈

This project took much longer to move into development than initially planned because of internal delays and re-prioritizing projects. During this time, I accepted a new role and left the project. As a team, we were able to measure several success metrics during user testing, and also created a list of other ways we would measure success.

Ones with a "✔️" mean we measured these during user testing:

1. Reduced drop offs ✔️
2. Fewer users contacting eBay
3. Session length ✔️
4. Number of completed returns
5. Time to return flow when notified ✔️
6. Reduce number of uninstalls (native app)
7. Page load times ✔️
8. Positive messaging between users
9. Direct user feedback ✔️

Takeaways + What would I change? 💡

Overall, this project was a success in a number of ways. Prior to joining the team, eBay provided no funding to redesigning the returns experience because they felt that it was not a top priority to dedicate money and resources towards. Once I joined the team, our main priority for the first few months was creating a compelling case for redesigning and rethinking the returns experience on eBay. Through several early rounds of user research, wireframing, mockups, prototypes and presentations, we received full support and funding from leadership to dive deeper into creating a completely new returns experience.

The main parts I would change involve our approach and process. Our team took a different approach to this redesign, and its one that I believe ultimately set us back. Instead of having fluid collaboration and frequent communication, the 4 designers separated and designed on our own. We would come together a couple times a week to share ideas and brainstorm to further narrow our ideas down to a small list; however, this took much more time and effort and we continued to find that we were not always aligned in our approach and thinking. This was reflected in several presentations that we gave to executives and managers (specifically early on).

In addition, one of our main solutions involved changing the wait times on eBay. We quickly found out that eBay was unable to change policies within our timeframe. This prolonged our design process because we were waiting for feedback on this change of policy ask that we requested. Another difficulty we ran into was that different teams own different parts of the UI. Therefore, some solutions we recommended were rejected because of team cost, time and team ownership. A final aspect of this project I would change is having each designer own their design completed, including prototypes. I was responsible for all prototypes in this project, and this includes the other designers mockups. There were several instances where I prototyped 6-8 different user paths in a couple of hours before a deadline because we were not all on track for a completion time and date. There was also some confusion at times when figuring out which screen went where in the flow. Better naming conventions and a proper handoff would have solved this challenge.

You've reached the end of this case study!

If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading through this case study! I hope you've gained some insight into my role and the problems we were solving for returns at eBay.

Want to see more projects? Click one of the links below:

Next: "Doyenne" - A female mentorship app
Previous: "Apple" - Online training in ATLAS