Aaron’s





About Aaron’s


         

Lease-to-own furniture, appliances and electronics retailer 

Objective

         

Increase conversion by enhancing the online leasing experience 

My Role (UX Lead)

         

Uncover UX opportunities and pitfalls, paying close attention to the online leasing experience. Make customers feel more confident signing a contract online for a big-ticket item.

Results

         

6% increase in conversion. Points of highest conversion involved more users entering the funnel and churn reduction at References step of lease application.






DISCOVERY
         

Analytics Analysis


Setting benchmarks and learning how users interact with Aaron’s website

Reviewed traffic, click-map and page-timing reports, honing in on abandonment and rage clicks within  sales funnel


Observed recorded site sessions (via FullStory) to establish root cause of friction












DISCOVERY 
         

Heuristic Evaluations & Competitive Audit

Conducted UX diagnostic of Aaron’s desktop and mobile sites to uncover usability issues, which I indexed by severity and frequency


Mapped solutions to each issue in a backlog of incremental design changes, starting with quick wins

Conducted evaluations of competitor websites











DISCOVERY
         

Original Homepage

Poor content taxonomy conceals breadth of offerings and fails to inform users they have ability to lease online


Homepage should communicate ⏤ what the site is, what you can do on the site and why you should be on the site (not somewhere else) 

No messaging to let users know they can lease online  


Narrow path scopes promote shallow parent categories


Redundant CTAs compete for attention and regurgitate links from universal navigation

Most prominent CTAs generate fewest clicks (7%) 


Content from high-traffic pages is minimal or absent (e.g., How to Own It Online)











DESIGN
         

New Homepage


Reimagined content hierarchy addresses misgivings upfront 

Leverages findings from competitive research to articulate Aaron’s value proposition and make users feel more confident leasing-to-own online 

Introduced comparison table to (Leasing Online vs. In-Store) to inform users everything on the site can be leased online 

Made it easier to access most popular content by including language from How to Own It Online page

Added Shop by Brand and other inspirational paths to help users make better scope selections


Refreshed visual design, while adhering to off-limits UI elements































DISCOVERY          

         

Original Lease 

At first glance, 3-step flow seems simple, since most fields were deferred to (excruciatingly long) final step 


Flow follows “clicks-are- bad” logic. But, cognitive load of form-field wall is worse than interaction cost of several mindless clicks


Dual-column layout interrupts vertical momentum of moving down the form











DISCOVERY
         

Dissecting the Flow


Interrogated every form field to find opportunities for optimization














DESIGN
         

New Lease Flow



Restructured to reduce complexity and optimize for mobile

Used progressive disclosure to create a linear flow comprised of bite-size steps to help users move quickly & assuredly through the application 












DESIGN
         

Putting first things first



Qualifying applicants upfront

         

Qualifying applicants for credit approval upfront allows 15 fields to be removed from remainder of lease for instantly approved applicants

These applicants now receive a congratulatory message, to motivate them to forge ahead through the most grueling steps (which I purposefully deferred)

Saving the worst for last

         

Deferred most grueling part of  application (Personal References) to the end, since highly motivated users are often more willing to tolerate higher interaction costs

Managing expectations
         

Added a new step to set expectations upfront about what checkout process entails and what info users will need on-hand.

Trade off: potentially increasing early abandonment for an increase in overall competion rate

Putting Price & Availability Upfront

         

Folded monthly payment amount, # of payments, cash price and total cost of ownership into first step, so biggest purchase-decision indicators are presented upfront.



















DESIGN
         

Making it easy to supply inputs


Since 2/3 of applications are accessed on mobile devices, optimizing the mobile experience was crucial


Numeric keyboard prompted as appropriate

Input methods (e.g., drop-down menu) match field (e.g., income range)

Increased size of touch targets  

Implemented single-column layout

Added padding between fields and labels


Added persistent progress bar to reduce uncertainty and give users a sense of their progression









Key Results

         

Changes released incrementally, so each can be validated (or invalidated) via A/B testing.

Deferring References increased conversion by 6% 

Aaron’s has since rebranded & re-platformed, though several core elements of my design and messaging remain  (e.g., homepage messaging, lease flow)