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VISUAL SEARCH

CONTEXT

When ASOS's visual search tool "Style Match" was initially released on the iOS and Android app there was a significant spike in adoption which then levelled off.

 

The data showed that visits involving a visual search had a conversion rate of around 5%, however only 0.8% of app visits were using the visual search functionality.

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We therefore wanted to increase discoverability and adoption of the visual search feature by creating a fun and engaging experience that would keep customers coming back to use the feature again and again.

CURRENT EXPERIENCE

When customers first opened search they would see the onboarding instructions on how to use the visual search, however on subsequent visits visual search was only discoverable via the icon in the search bar.

ONBOARDING

Onboarding.png

POST-ONBOARDING

Post-Onboarding.png

CURRENT USAGE

ENGAGEMENT

0.9% of visits were engaging with visual search on iOS and 0.75% on Android.

REPEAT USAGE

Customers that engaged with visual search carried out on average 4.5 visual searches per week on iOS and 3.6 on Android. This suggests the feature is adding value for those that discover it.

CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR

97.2% of visual searches on iOS were done using a photo from the customers image library rather than the camera.

Style Match - Engagement.png

CUSTOMER SENTIMENT

We know that customers who are aware of visual search, love this method for finding the products they’re looking for. However, the feature isn’t obvious and many customers aren’t aware that ASOS has visual search.

CUSTOMER PROBLEMS

AMBIGUOUS NAME

Customers did not understand what "Style Match" meant and it was not clear that they could use it to do a visual search.

IMAGE LIBRARY

Some customers felt uncomfortable seeing their photos on the search screen when not performing a visual search.

NO VISUAL REFERENCE

When customers did discover and use visual search there was no visual reference of the image they had searched on the results page.

DISCOVERABILITY

Customers did not discover visual search as part of their normal shopping journey and had to be prompted to use it.

CROPPING

The cropping feature was difficult to discover on the iOS app, therefore most customers didn't crop their image. 

PRODUCT RESULTS

Some participants expected Style Match to find the entire outfit in the photo and not just the most prominent item.

GOALS

  1. Raise awareness of visual search

  2. We want customers who use visual search to be confident they've found the right product​

  3. Once customers are using visual search we want them to keep using it​

KPIS

  • Increase overall visits with a visual search

  • Increase product views

  • Increase add to bag rate

  • Increase conversion

  • Increase the number of visual searches per user

WORKSHOP

I ran a workshop with the key stakeholders where we went through the current usage of visual search, put together project personas, identified opportunities and sketched up some solutions.

PROJECT PERSONAS

Based on the visual search tool we could see that customers were uploading the following images:

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  1. Instagram content

  2. Screenshots of products from ASOS or other online stores

  3. Photos of themselves wearing certain items, or an item on its own (in store or at home)

  4. Screenshots of marketing content from ASOS or other online stores

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From this information we put together some project personas to reference during the design process:

Project Personas.png

DISCOVERABILITY

One of the main issues we’d seen during user testing is that participants do not always discover the visual search feature during their normal shopping journey and when they do some do not know what it is or what it does.

During the workshop we sketched up some ideas focused on the following how might we statements:

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  • How might we make visual search more discoverable?

  • How might we encourage more customers to interact with visual search?

  • How might we educate customers on what visual search can be used for?

VISUAL SEARCH PROMO BANNER

Add a banner at the top of the navigation

promoting visual search​

Heading.png

PROMINENT HEADING

Add a descriptive header and copy above the

CTA's to callout visual search

SEARCH BAR ON THE HOMEPAGE

Surface the search bar on the homepage rather than it being hidden with the navigation tab

Move CTAs to the top.png

MOVE CTAS TO THE TOP

Move the CTA's to the top of the page so that

they're closer to the search bar​

Example images.png

EXAMPLE IMAGES

Give customers ideas of the types of images they could use to demonstrate the capabilities of visual search whilst also letting them demo visual search without having to use their own images​

MULTIPLE ITEMS

One of the expectations that customers have when using visual search is that it’s going to bring back all of the items in the photo.
 

The second part of the sketching session focused on the following how might we statements:

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  • How might we show customers multiple product types have been found?

  • How might we display results for multiple items?

FILTERS & PILLS

The results would bring back all product types with the ability to filter by particular categories

Hotspots.png

HOTSPOTS ON THE IMAGE

Hotspots are displayed on the image to show the items that have been identified in the image

TAPPABLE IMAGES

Zoomed in images of the items that have been found in the main image are displayed at the top of the page that the customer can tap on to view the different products​

EXPERIMENTS & OUTCOMES

After user testing the above ideas and prioritising them in relation to tech effort we were then able to start A/B testing the solutions.

SEARCH BAR ON HOMEPAGE

The first test we ran was moving the search bar to the homepage, currently a customer has to go the navigation tab to perform a text or visual search when most customers land on the homepage. 

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Having the search bar on the homepage saw an increase in both text and visual search, with visual searches increasing by 2.19%. 

 

The search funnel was also positively impacted with buying visitors from search increasing by 1.09%.

VISUAL SEARCH VISIBILITY

We then tested adding a descriptive heading and copy above the visual search CTA's to make visual search more prominent, as currently there is no instructions or signposting to tell customer what the feature does. 

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The percentage of visits that included a visual search increased significantly by 14.92%. 

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