Exploring novel UX concepts for a web-based comparison platform

master thesis

Status	in progress
Student	Sonia Patlan
Advisor	Dr. Julie Wagner, Dr. Johannes Vetter
Professor	Prof. Dr. Andreas Butz

Task

CHECK24 is one of the leading comparison platforms in Germany. Our costumers seek to find the best prices for insurances, mobile phone contracts, last minute vacations etc. under certain individual requirements and preferences. Some customers start using the portal without reaching their goal. They interrupt their task and leave the page. Prior market research revealed two potential challenges that need to be addressed through HCI design:

Simplify sense making in large data sets:

complex visualisations of product and contract information.
filtering to reduce the result list.

Simplify the users' steps in the interface in order to reach the goal:

High user workload when providing personal details in forms.
Feedforward and feedback about where the user is in the process, what he did so far and what the next steps will be.

Every product of the CHECK24 portfolio has its own pitfalls and problems concerning the UX-Design. So far we were able to improve some of the problem areas but there is still a lot of work to do to make the visit of CHECK24 a remarkable experience.

The Scope of the thesis is to run through the complete life cycle of a UX Design based on a real life product hosted by CHECK24. The first step is extensive literature review in order to identify important aspects of UX for e-commerce websites. After choosing one particular product of CHECK24 as your focus for UX improvements, you analyse the particular UX problems by usability study methods with real customers. Based on the results, you design and implement concepts: e.g. you might design and implement a novel structure for visualising search results - different to the status quo listing of results. A final study of your proposed concept should give some insights which concepts work and why.

You have the unique opportunity to see your concepts implemented in the CHECK24 environment by our IT staff and tested in the life system using A/B-testing.

your work consists in ...

Conduct a literature review to identify important UX aspects for e-commerce websites
Analyze the CHECK24 products based on a decent UX maturity model
Analyze a specific CHECK24 product from a UX perspective
Design low-/high fidelity prototypes that visualize the UX improvements
Run several user tests to identify problem areas and measure the success of the UX initiatives

you need...

Strong skills in web design and technologies
Knowledge in UX Design for websites
Experience in creating prototypes and mockups
Independent scientific work and creative problem solving

Keywords

user experience, web design, e-commerce, prototypes