PRODUCT OVERVIEW:
SourceESB is a resource (search engine) for electronic parts buyers sourcing electronic components. Buyers work for companies like Samsung, Amazon, Apple. Those companies manufacture various electronic devices such as smart phones tablets, smart watches, televisions, etc. Buyers job to buy electronic components in bulk. Buyers’ main goals to identify the right supplier fast. Supplier must have the right number of components in stock, be able to deliver them fast and at the right price.

SourceESB site’ main basis of revenue at the time was display add placement, therefore to be successful SourceESB needed to maintain steady flow of traffic to the site.

CHALLENGE:
SourceESB site was suffering decreasing web traffic due to poor site SEO as well as growing number of competitors, being able to provide superior search engines with new features. Stakeholders were looking to increase site traffic and reverse the trend of diminishing user base.

SOLUTION:
Expand SourceESB user base via increasing organic search traffic. Do so, by enhancing site’s informational content such as part detailed description, and documentation on every electronic part page. To retain new users, identify their (parts buyer’s) needs, goals and problems and build new site features that help solve those problems. New features would include the following: per bulk price break down, in stock hourly update, authentication feature.

PROCESS

UX RESEARCH:
Research portion started with competitive analysis to see what other similar products are currently on the market, as well as SourceESB website traffic analysis and SEO analysis. While competitive analysis where performed by UX department, site analytics was a joint effort of UX and Analytics departments. SEO analysis were provided by a third-party vendor.

UX dept. then proceeded with Stakeholders Interviews to gain insights into a very complex product and increase understanding of back end / front end technologies that make operation of this particular search engine possible. Then UX dept. continued with User Research by conducting User Interviews to confirm Stakeholders assumptions and hypothesis.

Afterwards User Personas were developed to sum up user interview and guide product design and feature prioritization.

UX DESIGN:
At the start of design process we built a site map of the existing website, analyzed user flows and proposed changes reflected in a new sitemap. Next step was building responsive wireframes with Axure.

USER TESTING:
User Testing has revealed that new features that were addressing user’s primary needs were heavily favorited over those that did not. While additional price information, hourly “in-stock” report and AVL / Approved Vendors List drew the most attention and delight, features like multiple parts search were not popular and were removed from further developments.

IN CONCLUSION:
Incremental improvements to site’s content has allowed SourceESB to stop losing organic traffic and gradually improve statistics. New featured desired by users permitted renewed interest in the product and contributed to better user retention.

Team Members

Serge Andreyev – UX Research, UX Design
John Kim – UX Design
Bia Castro – Visual Design
Sebastian Broways – Team Lead