Amazon Baby Registry Insights
New Parents need diapers
79% of baby registry creators list them as a top 10 item. However, 51% of people don’t purchase them as gifts for others. My team designed feature’s for Amazon’s baby registry to create opportunities for practical/emotional appeal around purchasing necessities, resulting in 68% of users saying they would utilize these features while shopping.
Project Info
Deliverables:
5 design recommendations
9 user Interviews
User journey map
Concept testing with 8 participants
Timeframe: Spring 2022
Role: Team Co-Leader of 6 student designers
Note: As part of Purdue's UX curriculum, we complete projects for industry sponsors. This project was sponsored by P&G to design features for Amazon's Baby registry.
Project Lingo
Gifter: Someone who purchases items off a baby registry to give to expecting parents
Creator: An expecting parent who creates a baby registry
The Challenge:
Gifters face many roadblocks when purchasing a gift from Amazon Baby Registries
When we asked, "How are gifters currently using baby registries?" and "What are the expectations around buying and adding essential items like diapers?" our team discovered the following problems:
Diapers aren't seen as personable or valuable gifts
Amazon's UI can be overwhelming
Gifters are concerned about buying duplicate items
How might we alleviate those pain points?
My Team's Approach:
Research:
How are gifters currently using baby registries? What are the expectations around buying and adding essential items, such as diapers?
Via content audit, study analysis, user walkthroughs, interviews, and competitive analysis.
Sketching & Prototyping:
How might we use our research insights to inspire design?
Via sketches, affinity diagramming, & Figma
Validation:
How effective are our designs? Would users actually use these features?
Via user survey and iteration
Our Discoveries & Solutions:
Diapers aren't seen as personable or valuable gifts
When we interviewed 5 gifters, we found that they tended to be on a spectrum with one side tending to buy very practical gifts while the opposite side often would choose more cute or fun options. As one interviewee said,
"I want my gifts to be more well-rounded than just a set of diapers or wipes."
Additionally, we found that other registry sites like Babylist have features in their UI that encourage an emotional connection while buying gifts, such as a message thanking the gifter for supporting the new parent's "newest addition and greatest adventure," compared to Amazon, where diapers are just shown as another item that you could buy.
Solution: Creator note board
This was a feature that we came up with to bridge the gap between Creator needs and Gifter browsing, allowing the Creator to establish a more personal or emotional connection and highlight priority items. This could encourage appeal-focused Gifters to purchase practical items since it portrays diapers as having more of a lasting permanence.
Feedback from users:
100% of participants would use this feature, and 87.5% said it would make them want to purchase diapers more.
"I would love to hear their personal thoughts and it would definitely impact my choice in buying them a gift."
Solution: Improved Diaper Fund
Currently, Amazon’s diaper fund has a happy little diaper icon that states that “A baby goes through an average of 2,700 diapers a year! Contribute any amount to this fund.”
2700 diapers can be a difficult number to visualize, so instead, we listed how many boxes of diapers a baby will go through in a year (because people buy diapers in boxes rather than individually), and compared that to a real-world distance to help visualize and emphasize the need for diapers
Feedback from users:
50% of participants would use this feature, and 50% said it would make them want to purchase diapers more.
"I think it would be cool to see all the contribution. It’ll make you feel the impact of your community ... All the support you have."
Amazon's UI can be overwhelming
When a gifter views someone's registry, it will show all the items in an apparently random order. Compared to Amazon's competitors, it lacked ample sorting/filtering options to assist visitors with their shopping. One interviewee stated:
"Sometimes the site isn't organized in an easy-to-use manner."
Solution: Improved sorting/filtering options
Currently, Amazon only has only three filters: Must have, Purchased, and Still Needed, as well as a way to sort from price low-high or high-low. Through our competitive analysis, we found that other baby registries such as Target have a wider variety of filters to help Gifters find a suitable gift. In our prototype shown above, we ideated some different types of filters.
Most needed: This is the existing must-have button but rephrased to place an emphasis on practicality.
Quick Shipping: This shows items that will ship within the next two days, and will appeal to last-minute shoppers.
Practical Picks: This would show more practical, useful items and would appeal to the more practical Gifters and encourage more appeal-focused givers to explore something new.
Price Range Options: Many of our interview participants said that price was a big factor for them for choosing gifts, so we added filters for different budgets. Target has a similar feature, and this would appeal to our savvy shopper persona as well.
Feedback from users:
75% of participants would use this feature, and 62.5% said it would make them want to purchase diapers more.
"As an indecisive person I tend to overthink things, this makes picking super easy."
Solution: Shopping Assistant
Another feature that we ideated on was a shopping assistant to help Gifters find gifts and learn about the other features we added, such as the Creator note board.
Feedback from users:
This was our least popular design--only 37.5% of participants would use this feature and said it would make them want to purchase diapers more.
“I don’t typically like things to pop up on the screen unexpected. I would recommend having the option to click should you want assistance"
Gifters are concerned about buying duplicate items
Amazon’s current tactics for promoting diaper purchases (like the Diaper Fund which allows Gifters to contribute to a pool of money for diapers) fail to inform Gifters of the practicality of buying diapers. They also do not assist Gifters in deciding how many boxes or what sizes should be purchased. This can be confusing and deter Gifters from buying diapers because
Gifters are hesitant to purchase diapers because they don't want to buy a large amount of one-size diapers that the baby could grow out of before new parents could even use them.
Solution: Registry analytics
To address the problem of concern over buying duplicate items, we wanted to implement an easier way for Gifters to see what other Gifters on the registry were doing. Amazon doesn't make it easy to see what has been purchased already, so we ideated a way to make it easier for them, as well as display more detailed information.
This feature would show analytics of what other Gifters are purchasing from the registry and we hope it would encourage Gifters to look at an overlooked category that they might not normally look at.
Feedback from users:
75% of participants would use this feature, and 87.5% said it would make them want to purchase diapers more.
Reflection
This was the first project that I had a leadership role in. While it was exciting, I felt a little over my head at the beginning when our team was strategizing our project timeline for the semester. Fortunately, my co-lead was more experienced than me and was an awesome mentor to me! As the semester progressed, I got better at leadership and planning as there were many times we split into sub-teams to divide and conquer. I absolutely loved the team dynamic we had, making this one my favorite projects I've ever worked on.