Rebecca Shapiro

Redesigning review creation at Amazon

Image of redesigned review creation experience

The customer problem

Customers rely on product reviews written by other customers to help them make informed purchasing decisions, but creating great reviews on Amazon was a frustrating process with limited functionality.

Issues with previous experience: Privacy issues Reviewers didn't know what to write Images and video were an afterthought No support for our new "attribute" ratings like durability and fit Accidentally collapsing header Userflow encouraged "one-and-done" review creation

Additional challenges:

  • An urgent need to deprecate the old backend platform meant the project required a fast turnaround time (3 weeks)
  • Multiple changes in UX resourcing during that time
  • Orchestrating cross-continent collaboration between Seattle and Berlin teams

Plus, with the advent of TikTok and Instagram Stories, we needed to convince executive leadership of an emerging paradigm shift on the importance of image and video reviews.

Design requirements

Through user research, customer input, and conversations with our cross-functional stakeholders, we aligned on the following priorities:

01 / Prioritize collection of user-generated images and videos over plain text reviews.

02 / Combat the “cold start” problem of review writing, by supplying helpful prompts based on what information is most useful to people reading reviews.

03 / Fix usability issues and provide a way to contextually edit what information is shared about the writer publicly.

04 / The solution must include additional dimensional “attribute” ratings beyond the overall star rating (ex. size and fit, durability, battery life ratings).

05 / The solution must be easy to localize and scalable to all Amazon country sites.

06 / Encourage users who are “in the mood to share feedback” by removing the dead-end after writing a review, and suggesting additional purchases to review.

07 / Modernize the look and feel of the review creation process to match the rest of the Amazon experience and increase customer trust in the platform.

Concept exploration

My lead designer explored and tested multiple new concepts:

A concept for review creation demonstrating modular review components.
A concept for review creation featuring simple swipeable cards with star ratings.
A concept for review creation featuring topic-specific prompts for each item.
A concept for review creation featuring a follow-along wizard for different review types like demonstrations, pros and cons, or unboxing videos.
A concept for review creation prioritizing image upload.

And we aligned on a lightweight, media-first approach that met our requirements and was both easy to use and implement:

Features of the redesigned solution: Media is primary call-to-action. Flexible attribute card. Guiding language. Contextual editing of personal information. Submission takes user to new "Review your Purchases" page

Our solution and its impact

Impact by the numbers:

  • 10.1% increase in reviews
  • Repeat review submissions increased by 2%
  • 22% increase in reviews with images or video
  • 40.1% increase in reviews with multiple images
  • The average review increased in length by 5.6%

All content copyright Rebecca Shapiro 2023