E-commerce usability research for an online retail platform
Analytics told the team where customers were dropping off. They couldn't explain why. Remote moderated sessions with real shoppers answered both questions in the same conversation.
Drop-off data without explanation
E-commerce analytics are good at measuring behaviour at scale. They tell you that 40% of users who reach the product page leave without adding to basket. They tell you that checkout abandonment spikes at a particular step. They give you the what with reasonable precision.
They cannot tell you why. A user who encounters a confusing navigation structure and one who simply changed their mind look identical in the data. A checkout step that creates uncertainty for first-time buyers and one that's technically broken produce similar abandonment curves. Optimising on the basis of this data alone means guessing at causes - running A/B tests against hypotheses that may be entirely wrong.
This retailer had the data. They could see the friction in their purchase journey numerically. They needed to understand what was actually creating it - with enough specificity to know what to fix, and in what order.
Real shoppers, real tasks, real-time observation
Participation Studio recruited participants representing the retailer's actual target customer segments - screened to ensure they matched the demographic and behavioural profile of the people the platform was built for, rather than general panel respondents who might approach the task very differently.
Remote moderated usability sessions were conducted over screen share, with participants completing realistic shopping tasks: product discovery from the homepage, product comparison across a category, and completing a purchase through to the confirmation page. The tasks were realistic rather than artificial - the kind of shopping mission that represented genuine customer intent, not a simplified version designed to avoid complexity.
Throughout each session, participants were asked to think aloud - narrating their experience, their reasoning, and their reactions as they moved through the site. Researchers observed through screen share and conducted real-time moderated discussion, following up on moments of hesitation, probing the reasoning behind navigation choices, and exploring the emotional dimension of friction points as they occurred rather than in retrospect.
Post-session synthesis identified patterns across participants, distinguishing between individual preference variations and consistent friction points that affected most users in similar ways.
What the research involved
Friction located, explained, and prioritised
Friction was concentrated in two areas: product discovery, where navigation structure and category labelling created uncertainty about whether users were in the right place; and checkout, where information hierarchy and the sequence of decision points created hesitation that analytics had been recording as abandonment without being able to explain it.
Product discovery friction was primarily navigational - users weren't lost in the sense of not being able to find things, but repeatedly uncertain about whether they were in the best place to find what they were looking for. Category structures that made intuitive sense from a product management perspective didn't map onto the mental models customers brought to the browsing experience.
Checkout friction had a different character: it was primarily about information and confidence. Specific steps in the checkout sequence presented information in an order that created uncertainty precisely at the moments when users most needed reassurance - about delivery options, about costs, about what would happen next. The result was abandonment that wasn't a decision to leave but a failure of the interface to resolve doubt quickly enough.
The research produced a prioritised list of specific, actionable issues - not a general observation that the checkout needed improvement, but a documented account of what was happening, where, why, and with what frequency across the participant group.
Changes made, results measured
Insights from the research informed targeted improvements to navigation structure, product information hierarchy, and checkout flow. The changes contributed to increased conversion rates, improved average order value, and reduced checkout abandonment.
By identifying the specific causes of friction through observed user behaviour rather than analytics alone, the research enabled the development team to build and test solutions with confidence about what they were addressing - rather than iterating against hypotheses that may not have been correct.
The research also prevented a planned site-wide navigation overhaul that would have been expensive and disruptive - the findings showed that the navigation issues were specific and addressable, not structural.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
- Usability problems in an insulin device surfaced before manufacturing locked anything in, with human factors evidence supporting the regulatory submission.
- An NHS patient portal team got a prioritised, evidenced list of adoption barriers, and the highest-leverage fix wasn't the one they expected.
- Patient involvement changed a trial's primary endpoint before the protocol was finalised, cited by the ethics committee as a model for evidencing PPIE.
Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
Facing a similar decision?
Tell us what you need to decide and who you need to hear from - we will come back with a clear, proportionate proposal.
Get a QuoteWe reply within one working day.
Prefer to talk it through first?
Book a free 20-minute call. No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you honestly whether research is worth it for your decision, and what it would cost.