When new right to repair laws were announced, a national retailer took the opportunity to examine an existing service site, originally designed for service and repair personnel. There were numerous issues with it, however, and it didn’t serve the needs of intended users, much less consumers. Upper management labeled it “terrible” and knew major improvements were needed but didn’t know exactly what those were or how to properly prioritize. To complicate things further, they faced challenges with limited internal resources, which made it difficult to design, develop, implement, and maintain a massive update.

Our approach

Several focus groups with various stakeholders were already underway, revealing numerous site functionality and navigation issues. In order to further understand strengths, weaknesses and additional opportunities for improvement, we took a 3-pronged approach, including a comprehensive site audit, a user-focused heuristic evaluation, followed by an in-depth competitive evaluation.

The audit captured data on search functionality, product page content, such as photos and parts lists, and site documents, such as service manuals. The heuristic evaluation revealed feature- and functionality-related issues of varying scope and severity. The competitive evaluation collected key insights from other service sites.

The results

All three efforts produced valuable insights into content, features, data storage structure and overall site design. Applying UX expertise, we provided actionable recommendations focused on improving service site functionality, design and usability. Recommendations included strengthening search functionality, redesigning the interface, and adding content, such as videos, to guide and support site users. Combined with findings coming out of focus groups, all served as the foundation for recommendations provided to design a service site that better meets user needs and satisfies upcoming right to repair laws.