Great study on how to redesign a site, from Anne Holland's MarketingSherpa Consumer newsletter. LEGO had just reorganized their products into four lines, and wanted to know: should we organize our site around our product categories?
Answer: No.
Why not? Testing 48 parents, 24 kids 13-14, and 24 kids 7-12, using a company called SachsInsights, LEGO found that people wanted the site organized around their own activities: playing (online games), exploring products, and buying products.
They separated shopping from product descriptions, too, so kids who just wanted to see what kind of products there were wouldn't face shopping cart delirium.
The names for product lines may work in the store, where you can see the similar boxes, and get a sense of what all the products have in common. But online, you depend on a name and an image. Unfortunately, some of the names become ambiguous when put online: like, "Explore," and "Next." Solution: supplement the text with meaningful images.
Other conclusions:
- Kids navigate by images but parents need the text.
- No one likes having to hover over an icon to find out more. Put that information out there right away.
- You don't need to test a lot of folks. 96 consumers told LEGO all it needed to know.
- Test in waves. LEGO did three waves.
Results:
- The new site design got 50% more visitors, from 2.2 million to 3.5 million.
- The new design works. I just bought a dozen Red Monsters!
Samples of various LEGO design tests, including losers:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/lego/ad.html
Sachs insights, the team that conducted LEGO's usability study
http://www.sachsinsights.com
LEGO's current site
http://www.lego.com
Marketing Sherpa's Consumer email newsletter: subscriptions@sherpa.tm00.com
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