SEARCH TOOL
THE PROBLEM
Customers were expressing frustration in trying to find the right product to conduct their research.
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With a database of over 5 million products to choose from, the existing system was not adequate for narrowing down search results to find the proper result.
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Each product has an immense amount of data and information associated with it, but the existing presentation was too confusing and cluttered to accurately find the information on the products.
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Customers could range from purchasing agents (who wanted to just click and buy) to actual research scientists (who require detailed and complex information to make a purchasing decision) - how to design for all audience types?
THE PROCESS
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Extensive initial user feedback sessions to establish what specific pain points users of the tool were facing. Ranged from internal users (customer support, product management, lab scientists) and external users (purchasing agents, researchers, lab assistants)
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Multiple iterations of wire-framing and prototyping, while constantly taking these new iterations back to the users to test the design
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Worked in an agile development cycle with developers, designers, product management, and content leads always present through every cycle to hammer out the design
THE RESULT
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A cleaner and more visually appealing search interface - reduced to a few fields to get the user directly to the results
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Re-architecture of the search engine to provide a smarter search, more relevant results, and in the order users are expecting to find them
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Cleaned up interface of the search results - reduced the noise. Provide only the key data relevant to making a purchasing decision for most users
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Improved filtering interface to help narrow down large results sets AND Reduced clicks to get to the more complex data and present them within the results themselves, so users don't get "lost"
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Cross-selling of products relevant to the specific results, as opposed to just general related products
