Stores, Web and Beyond: Serving Multi-channel Customers With Meaningful User Experiences
Wednesay, August 15, 3:00-3:45 PM
by Kathleen Hoski
Customers increasingly use retailers' websites as one data point in a larger ecosystem of "information influencers." Exploratory research to optimize a website's role as part of this process must increasingly seek to understand needs and behaviors beyond the desktop experience.
In this presentation, Kathleen Hoski from Best Buy and Paris Patton from Sachs Insights explore the ways in which leading consumer electronics retailer Best Buy evolved its user experience research methodologies from observations of single site visits to longitudinal ethnography in order to understand the "intensely multi-channel" experience of researching and purchasing consumer electronics products. The presentation also includes compelling video examples of real-world web utilization and shopping behaviors, taken from across methodologies, including: ethnographic interviews, website design and optimization focus groups, store shop-alongs, as well as video and written journaling.
In this session, you will:
- Discover the benefits of studying multi-channel behavior to optimize the web experience.
- Obtain a methodological overview of highly web-oriented ethnographic interviews, focus groups, store shop-alongs, as well as video and written journaling.
About Kathleen Hoski
Kathleen leads usability research at BestBuy.com, where she has helped evolve research methodologies from traditional usability to longitudinal ethnography in order to meaningfully address the question, "How do consumers research and shop in a multi-channel environment?" She believes the insights from this type of research suggest a significant shift in how we think about the design of e-commerce sites.
Prior to joining Best Buy, Kathleen worked as a user experience consultant for Hewlett-Packard and Sachs Insights. She has studied everyone from teleworkers at a large, Canadian telecommunications firm (as part of her work on a research team at the University of Toronto) to North American consumers who decorate the interiors of their homes in "ethnic" themes (as part of her work as a graduate student). She currently resides in Minnesota, where she enjoys gardening in the region's much-too-short summers.