Experience Benchmarking Comparative study of competitor websites – a pilot study The purpose of the study was to evaluate our product and the competitors on various experience parameters that can make a product ideal.
UED Team 16 June 2014
Parameters
that build the experience
Functional 1. Visual Appeal Overall look & feel of the site, style guide, colors, typefaces, etc. 2. Images Use of images to augment the information, choice of images, presentation, ads, project displays, etc. 3. Visual Details Micro details – such as the UI kit widgets, iconography, etc
Visual
Experience
1. Intuitive Whether the design is intuitive to use, user has a good sense of content with least / no effort or not. User awareness of the state, position and next step for desired action 2. Navigation Simple or complex 3. Information Unique, sorted, desired and complete. Presentation of relevant information and to the context. Concise / elaborate & boring
Emotional
1. Engaging type of info v/s its display 2. Affinity recall value, trust, familiarity and associations 3. Innovative Uniqueness, smart, across the domain or beyond
Task
Target Audience 30 numbers of real users are selected who have already used the real estate websites for their property search recently. Users are categorized mainly as 1. End user (who has used the websites to buy/rent/PG) 2. Real Estate professional (Broker/dealer) The subjects were requested to visit the websites and perform a small activity on 99acres and other competitor sites. In due course they visited the Home page , SRP +Map view, PD page, contact advertisers and read some auxiliary information. Accordingly they were requested to score each site on the set experience parameters.
Target Audience Stats Age Group
Buy
Rent
PG
Target User
Male
Female
18
12
End User Real Estate Professional 25-35
3
19
5
36-45
1
1
-
46-60
1
-
-
25
5
Total : 30 no.s
Methodology
Sites visited
Experience Parameters Described the subjects all the parameters influencing the overall experience – broadly categorized as Visual, Functional & Emotional. Accordingly, the subjects were requested to rate the selected real estate websites including 99acres on a score meter of 1 to 4 (4 = high & 1 = low). We calculated the average of all the ratings categorically - visual, functional and emotional index on a scale of 10. And then calculated the experience ratings by compounding the overall average scores.
1. Visual
1. Intuitive
1. Engaging
Appeal
2. Navigation
2. Affinity
2. Images
3. Information
3. Innovative
3. Details Score Board
Rating Index = average of scores Visual Rating Index
1 0
Functional Rating Index
1 0
Emotional Quotient
1 0
Overall Experience Rating = (visual +functional +emotional) rating index / 3
Visual Rating
Key Insights: 1. 99acres scored second lowest among the 6 websites as per visual rating index. 2. Subjects found housing to be extremely appealing and liked their exclusive way of displaying information. 3. Subjects found 99acres to be messy and usual 4. Subjects rated the overall visual look of PropTiger as eye-catchy .
Functional Rating
Key Insights: 1. 99acres scored second highest amongst the 6 websites as per functional rating index. 2. Subjects found housing to be extremely interactive with unique, concise set of information. 3. Subjects found enough information on 99acres as well as directional, but found difficulty
Emotional Rating
Key Insights: 1. 99acres scored average in emotional quotient. 2. User found housing to be informative, immersive and best practice so far hence subjects affinity is growing towards their product. 3. Subjects found 99acres to be usual without any kind of innovative value associated with it. Though the recall and trust value is good.
Overall Experience Rating 5.2
7.7
5.2
4.6
4.9
6.2
Inferences
Need for : •
Designing the UI kit- style guide, color scheme, typeface, widgets, icons.
•
Revamping the look & feel.
Need for : •
Refining and re-sorting information content, it’s relevance, purity and presentation.
•
Extremely responsive site –simplest navigation
Need for : •
Creating a wow factor with a super smart, trustful product that can urge the user to spend more enjoyable time than desired.