Sephora Mobile App Heuristic Evaluation

Improving the way customer’s browse and purchase Sephora’s products on their mobile device.

Timeline
March - April 2021

Role
UX Strategy, User Testing,
Synthesizing, Prototyping

Tools
Adobe Illustrator,
Figma

Overview

Problem Statement

The app offers diverse browsing options but suffers from poor organization and hard-to-access information, which undermines the overall user experience.

Goals

  1. Reorganizing the navigation bar streamlines access to tools, reducing search time and creating a more intuitive user experience.

  2. Consistently grouping features builds a predictable structure, enabling users to navigate the app more quickly and confidently.

  3. Focusing on the most-used functions allows the app to optimize performance and responsiveness for a smoother browsing and purchasing experience.

Research Insights - Pain Points

User Research

After gathering their feedback, we identified 6 key areas for improvement in the original app, based on input from eight participants: Sephora Credit Card, Offers Page, Community Tab, Color Filtering, Reviews, and Sign-up Process

We asked 8 users to use the original app to browse, select a product to purchase, and go through the purchasing process without completing the purchase. Our users included both frequent brick-and-mortar store shoppers and those who had never shopped at Sephora before.

Round 1

Prototyping

Low Fidelity

High Fidelity

User testing with eight participants surfaced key improvements for Version 1, while also highlighting positives like the intuitive color carousel, clean checkout process, and visible Sephora VIB program.

Based on feedback, we simplified credit card info, improved color descriptions, made reviews and filters more accessible, and decluttered the home page for a better user experience.

Round 2

Final Design

The final Sephora app update improves visibility of VIB perks and deals, organizes the shop into clear categories, enhances filters, enriches product pages with better photos and reviews, and streamlines checkout for a smoother, more informed shopping experience.

Re-structured Navigation

By minimizing the volume of information on the homepage, users feel more confident exploring the application. Grouping section in the navigation bar help overwhelmed users locate specific products quicker.

Before

After

Browsing a Product

When users click on a product, they can now see key information immediately and browse through items, such as Foundation, using a color carousel. This optimizes their ability to understand the product details.

Before

After

Frequently Used Functions

Streamlining functions such as reviews, ratings, product info, and more on one page optimizes performance and responsiveness while browsing and purchasing a product.

Before

After

Reflection

Takeaways

Throughout this project, we faced several obstacles, including difficulty finding information about the Sephora credit card, numerous credit card promotions, a cluttered and hard-to-read offers page, ambiguity around the community tab's purpose, unclear color filtering descriptions, and hidden reviews. To address these issues, we improved app navigation and strategically placed promotional content, enhanced the design of the offers page, clarified color labeling, increased the visibility of reviews, and revamped the brand identity. These changes have significantly improved the overall user experience.

Our future steps involve undergoing additional rounds of revisions and refining the app's design based on user feedback. We will also continue to improve performance and reliability, as well as update the app to meet evolving user needs.