Collaborate List + Share list
Rethink how customers collect, create, and share their lists.
Amazon List
Amazon List is an easy and convenient way for customers to save, and confidently buy any product for themselves or others. Create a wish list can help friends purchasing gifts for you and search friend's gift ideas from their wish list.
TL;DR
My role
As an intern at the EDG in 2016, I was asked to reimagine the best list experience and help customers understand the list privacy setting. I worked on defining the best collect, create, and share experiences and proposed a collocation list concept to the team. In 2018, I worked with a senior designer and launched the collaboration list, and I drove the phase 2 design to combine the collaboration list and share list.
The ask
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Redefine the list privacy setting
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Explore the concept of collaboration list
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Optimize the list experiences by iterating on top of the collaboration list P0
Impact
Ran experiment on proposed CX. It was a positive experience and it launched worldwide in August 2018.
4.58%
Increase attributed revenue world wide; 1.56% in US
0.6%
Increase in units sale world wide; 1.56% in US
11%
Increase in new list created.
Launch articles :
“As I was browsing my Amazon wishlist yesterday, I noticed a new avatar icon with a + Invite button next to it. The explanation pop-up said, "Invite others to add or remove list items," and I nearly squealed from joy. Could it be? For real? By golly, it was finally happening!” (Article link, copyright to Theandroidpolice.com)
“Amazon finally makes collaborative wish lists a reality. “ (Article link, copyright to Mashable.com)
“Collaborative lists have been highly requested, and the company rolled them out to some users… The feature is sure to be useful for party planning, roommates, holidays, birthdays - basically any event where multiple people need to buy stuff together.” (Article link, copyright to Theverge.com)
Previous experience
The below files were documented a long time ago only to show you a quick view of how the list works in 2017.
Dive deep into existing experiences
I started this project with a big problem: the definition of “list privacy” is not clear to the customers. So, instead of jumping into problem-solving, I decided to relook at the best list experiences and how that experience ties into “list privacy”. It was a lot of research, competitive analysis, and deep-dive of current experiences. However, I wanted to handle it this way because sometimes the problems are tied together; I have to dig deeper to find out the relationships of each issue.
Summarize on the existing research
I tried to put in customers' shoes and rethink different expectations on different types of lists we offer today. Today we offer two types of lists: private shopping lists and public wish lists. If I were a customer who knew that I had a public wish list and anyone on Amazon can search it, it would be a trustbuster. So I think that keeps all lists private initially and allows customers to change privacy settings on different types of the list should be the direction in the future.
Take a step back to look at Amazon List holistically
I tried to rethink the ideal customer journey and how a new customer engages with the list and becomes a power list user. An easy and fun collecting experience will motivate customers to create more lists. At this moment, customers don't need to think about list privacy settings because they just started with collecting, and they need first to have fun using it before they want to discover how to share the list with other people. A clear and straightforward way to manage the list allows customers to explore different ways of using the list, such as share with friends and allow friends to buy gifts for them. As the engagement increases, customers feel more comfortable publishing their lists and sharing lists with broader customers on Amazon. Eventually, they can search other friends' lists or search for idealists to get purchase recommendations. This ideal customer journey informs us how we help customers get started and the right moment to educate the list privacy and share.
What are our opportunities?
I went through the current experience analysis, expectations on different types of lists, and customer journey. I finally landed on three top areas to improve our current list experience and educate the customer on the list privacy at the right moment.
Collect
• Rethink the ingress of collecting items when customers use the list for the very first time.
• Customers start with a default private Shopping List.
• Customers don’t need to think about list privacy at this moment.
• Simple, fast, fun collecting process drive engagement.
Create
• Simplify and improve list creation experience
• Give customers the option to publish their list if they are ready.
• Clarify the definition of a public list and how it relates to a customer’s profile.
• Easy, fast, fluent creating process help organize items.
Share
• Simplify and clarify how to share lists and educate our customers about their list privacy at the right moment.
• Clearly control over who has access to the list can help to build trust with customers.
• To achieve customer’s expectation, divided share experience into two parts: Link sharing and collaborate with friends
• Accessible, secure, straightforward sharing process reduces frictions and motivates customers to share.
Design process
By understanding the newly defined opportunities and learning from previous research and competitive analysis, I started the design with quick sketches and switched to low fidelity mocks to flash out the ideal customer journey and migrate the most convincing flow to high fidelity mocks. I requested to review with my design lead twice a week and synced with the product team and dev team every week even the work was conceptual, and there were no dev resources assigned to the project at that moment.
Wireframe explorations
Collect items
• Customers start with a default private Shopping List.
• Customers don’t need to think about list privacy at this moment.
• Simple, fast, fun collecting process drive engagement.
Create
• Give customers the option to publish their list if they are ready.
• Clarify the definition of a public list and how it relates to the customer’s profile.
• Easy, fast, fluent creating process help organize items.
Link sharing
• Link sharing is a quick and lightweight way of sharing a list.
• Give customers an option to change the default address to the list.
Collaborate with others
• Clear control over who has access to your list.
• Drive connections and collaborations between amazon customers.
Search for contacts
• Clear control over who is the owner of the list and who has access to your list.
• Encourage people to search for new friends and allow customers to shop with their significant others.
Help launch the collaboration list P0 at April 2018
I partialy worked with a senior designer launching the new feature - collaboration list MLP design including redlines and QA. But List sharing still remian the same since I left.
The remained Share list experience is confused and barely recognizable for customers. So I did a few rounds of explorations and proposed to test my simplified share list flow through usability study. I used the customer feedback to convince the product team to improve the share list experiences after the collaboration list launch.
Remain problem
Key insights from usibility study
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Majority of customers (n>6/10) think that ease of use is the most important when sharing their lists.
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Majority of customers (n>6/10) believe that the collaboration list is part of the shared list and feel confused after knowing that sharing and collaboration are two different functions.
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Majority of customers (n>6/10) don't connect the share list with their list privacy.
“ I like fewer steps. Ease of use is more important. “ - Katya C
“ I never figure out to find my husband's list after he shared with me. I couldn't find via list search as well.“ - Stacy O
“ I am assuming that I will click on the plus button to share this list cause it looks that there are several people there.“ -Daniel A
Design proposal
Short-term plan: focus on simplify the Share list experience
• Share list should be as obvious as possible
• Customers don't have to change the list privacy settings before they share the list
• Privacy setting should be clearly described to the customers before they share the list
Long-term plan: integrate the Share list and Collaboration list
• Define list privacy settings for all use cases including public&share, collaborate&share etc.
• Flash out all participant flows including sign-in customers, unrecognized customers, none amazon customers.
Short-term plan
Long-term plan (Share flow)
Long-term plan (Collaboration flow)
What has been launched?
The short-term solution was out of the door in July 2018. The long-term solution was out of the door by Sept 2018 and it is live today. It was positive in both engagement and revenue.
There were a lot of legal discussions and copy editing happened during the design process to better articulate the list privacy definition on Amazon. The flows shown above were just a few key screens and a lot of participant flows were not displayed.
