Best Buy's "JIll" Goes to the Web

Best Buy is having great success using personas to redesign their stores. Let’s see how they do with using personas to design their website. (At Future Now this is one of the most important parts of our Persuasion Architecture process).

 In my last post I talked about “Jill”, the soccer mom persona created by Best Buy. She lives for her kids and is intimidated by electronic stores. Let’s see what kind of an experience Jill has on the website. I’ll give her two tasks. One is to find a Barbie Digital Camera for her daughter. The other is to research a new TV. 

 Note – one of the main ways in which women use the web is to do research on products they’re interested in - especially in an area where they feel intimidated and want more knowledge in order to feel more comfortable and confident making a purchase decision.

 So – Jill goes to the home page in search of a Barbie Digital Camera. In the active window (main center area – the prime real estate) she clicks on “SAVE 10% ON DIGITAL CAMERAS”.  I’ll tell you right now – this pathway is a dead end. She sees a lot of digital cameras, but none of them are the Barbie Digital Camera she’s looking for.

 If she gets frustrated, she may go to the site search and type in “Barbie Digital Camera”. In this case, the site search does a fabulous job and pulls up the product right away.

Or - she may go to the left hand navigation, and click on the link to "Toys".

 

I could argue that a camera is not a toy – and a better choice of verbiage might be “Kids”. In any case, this takes her to the “Toys” landing page. In this section, the color scheme changes to red, orange, and, you guessed it, pink. (At least Best Buy is consistent with their stereotyping) Now she must decide which category to click on to search for her Barbie Digital Camera. She must choose between Interactive Toys, Handheld Games, Learning Toys, RC Vehicles or Kids Electronics. This is not an intuitive choice, but by default she may guess Kids Electronics. If she does – she’s going in the right direction. 

 
She’s greeted with the text

 “Stocked with Barbie, Bratz, SpongeBob, and more, this is the place to find the kid-approved products associated with some of the most popular kids' shows and stars.”

 Excellent! She’s definitely in the right place, and by scrolling, she finds her Barbie Digital Camera. 

 On to task number two – researching TVs. We know Jill is intimidated by electronics, so she’s going to want to gain some more knowledge before she goes in the store so she won’t feel stupid in front of the sales guy, and will have more confidence in her purchase decision.

 So, on the left hand navigation Jill sees Electronics and under it “Televisions”. She clicks on this and lands on the Televisions landing page. She can Shop By Category – let’s see HDTVS, Flat-Panel Televisions, Projection Televisions, Combo Televisions – YIKES – this is looking really scary. What’s the difference? There’s another category – Understand TV Technologies. Ok – this looks better – this should have the research info she needs. But wait – look up there – a link that says “Shopping Assistants” – perfect! Maybe this will link her to that cute shopping assistant in the pink shirt she sees in the store. She clicks on this link and lands on a page that looks promising at first.

 “In search of that great digital camera, TV or PC? Not sure where to start when there are so many to choose from? The BestBuy.com Shopping Assistants will narrow the field!”

 Terrific – then she keeps reading

 “With a few quick questions, these online product filters sort through our selection to find the products that match your answers — it's that easy!”

 Online product filters???? What the heck are those? They sound really scary. So Jill goes back to the Televisions home page and tries Understand TV Technologies. She clicks on Plasma and is greeted by this copy

 “Plasma displays function differently than any other TV technology in that they actually produce light independently at each pixel on the screen, as opposed to projecting a separate light source through or off of other elements to conjure a picture. A plasma "screen" is actually a dense network of individual cells, three for each pixel of the display (coated with red, green and blue phosphors, respectively).”

 Jill is now thinking online product filters don’t sound so bad. But if she keeps reading she’ll see Strengths, Considerations, and The bottom line – these are a little less confusing, especially The bottom line. (though The bottom line was below the fold in my broswer, and she may not have seen it) I might make a suggestion that they include a category called “Plain English”. But they are at least making a real attempt to simplify the information, which is key to Jill. One other problem – there’s no clear call to action to tell Jill where to go once she finishes reading the information.

 What would make it even better would be a comparison chart with different types of TVs so she could get a clear idea of what the differences are. 

 But overall – www.bestbuy.com does a pretty good job of meeting Jill’s needs, at least as far as finding the product and information she’s looking for. Check out process is a whole other story we’ll have to save for another day. But kudos to Best Buy for doing a better job than most in accommodating Jill on their website. 

Comments

[Earl]

Hello everyone. I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace. Help me! Please help find sites for: Fabric conditioners. I found only this - mitsubishi air Conditioners. Water king is a non intrusive water conditioner that inhibits scale formation, removes existing scale deposits and partially softens hot water. You should find a location for the vent first, whether it be window, wall or drop ceiling. With love :mad:, Earl from Wales.

[Outsourcing Copenhagen]

Wow, thanks for this post.

[Singaiah]

/ Estrategia de Marketing Digital :Presto servicos para uma eprmesa de Tecnologia da Informacao, no Japao. Reparei que os sites de pesquisa e buscas daqui do Japao sao 100% em japones, ou seja, caso eprmesarios japoneses venham a pesquisar negocios relativos ao Brasil, muito dificilmente vao identificar algo interessante, pois no Brasil – utiliza-se o alfabeto e nao o idioma japones. Qual a sua opiniao, caso eprmesas brasileiras com potencial exportador (micro, pequenas e medias eprmesas) viessem a anunciar no Japao (home-pages e vitrine virtual de produtos e servicos) totalmente em japones, visando facilitar desenvolvimento de negocios entre eprmesas brasileiras e eprmesas japonesas. Detalhe: todas as palavras-chave seriam registrados nesses sites de busca e pesquisa com a utilizacao do SEO – Search Engineer Optimization.

[Naomie]

Children at their young age must be taught about how they can get good and affordable deals on the internet. It is however necessary that they will be guided all the way through their first purchases so that they can get insights coming from adults.