App Mall ExperienceRetailMeNot
Background
The RetailMeNot design team was charged with re-imagining the mobile app. As a part of that, the In-Store team asked us to consider how we might improve the mall experience. The original mall experience in the app consisted of a list of geofences of malls and stores. Within the malls tab was a smattering of true malls, shopping plazas and even single store geo-fences.
Original Mall Experience
Goals
- Prune the definition of what we call malls to better match consumer expectations
- Create a more engaging and useful experience
Challenges
- Time and resource constrained
- Uncertain whether customers would find value (small traffic mostly driven by push)
Research
Competitors
We looked at a handfull of existing mall apps to see how they were exposing content and allowing users to navigate.
Westfield Malls App
Solution Exploration
When we originally started the project, we were exploring a fuller featured experience, however, do to shifting priorities we were asked to scale it back. The main constraints were a fixed timeline and limited development resources. More specifically, we wanted to launch it before the end of the holiday shopping season so that we could take advantage of the higher traffic volume. As a result we quickly created some prototypes and tested them in a couple rounds of usability, iterating after each one.
Unexpected Delight
Participants in the usabilities were unsure of what to expect from the experience, but once they saw it, they were delighted. Multiple participants asked when the feature would be live in the app and said they would definitely use it.
Tough Choices
There were a few things we struggled with regarding where to place the mall experience app. Our orignal plans to expose it on the newly redesigned homepage were quashed when the test for the homepage did not yeild the results we had hoped. That later turned out to be an issue with improper tracking for the test. Once it was decided that Malls would be a tab on the main navigation, we struggled with what to call it. While the main focus was nearby malls, the tab also showed nearby stores. Ultimately, product leadership made the decision to call it Malls. Ultimately, our goal was to build as best of an experience we could within the constraints of the project. Something simple, that we hoped would be enough to prove if it was worth more investment or not.
RMN Malls New Experience
Results
At the time of this writing, the MVP has only been out a few weeks. We are still monitoring, but early signs are positive.
- 2.5X increase in daily active users
- 4X increase in traffic than previous experience