Compare Tool Redesign
An opportunity to improve the UX and UI of our popular compare tools came as part of U.S. New's site wide redesign. I lead the beginning stages of the compare redesign. This is a complex tool with a multitude of functions, so I wanted to invest time in the research phase in order to build tool that gives the user a great experience and is flexible enough for various products of the site to take advantage of.
Process:
Using usertesting.com we had testers use our colleges and autos compare tools, as well as test competitor sites. The user feedback helped the design team identify features of the tool that worked well, unknown bugs and areas of improvement, including:
• Pain points: Numerous users were confused by the different ways they could add to the compare tool, as the location would change based on their settings.
• Positives: Users appreciated infographics like donut charts for better data visualization
As a group, design was able to all collaborate on what new features and improvements would work for the team as a whole and across the various products within U.S. News.
Results:
Getting these takeaways gave me a solid foundation on which to start the design. Having the whole design team collaborate early on in the process allowed us to design a tool that would work across product and saved on future design and development time.
