CNN Coupons & Business Insider Coupons

CNN Coupons and Business Insider Coupons are among the top players in the online couponing industry for the US market, attracting an average of 2 million visitors per month each.

The primary objective of these websites is to provide users with discount codes that they can use during online purchases at checkout.

Despite the high traffic volume, users have expressed dissatisfaction with their overall experience on the websites.

Common complaints include difficulty finding useful coupons, a cluttered interface, and an overwhelming amount of irrelevant content.

The result is low user retention, indicating a need to improve user satisfaction significantly. 

Couponing platforms mainly focus on three personas:

Sarah is a proactive saver, who loves to avail herself of different discounts, promo codes, loyalty points, or cashback offers. She is always open to experimenting with her shopping process. 

Marcus, on the other hand, is more of a planner. He likes to find the perfect balance between the product and the price and spends a bit more time on researching and comparing prices before making a purchase. Marcus prefers using coupons over other types of offers since they are a safer way to save money.

Joe, is skeptical of couponing platforms due to previous negative experiences and tends to avoid cashback or rewards offers, as he's reluctant to disclose personal details such as his email address. Because of limited data availability, it is difficult to gain deeper insights into Joe's specific needs and preferences. This shows the importance of conducting further research.

The user journey on a couponing website typically happens very quickly, with an average time of only 1 minute spent on the platform.

Once users decide to make an online purchase, they usually search for coupons on Google and open the first three results.

They then browse through the available vouchers and select one that applies to their basket, sometimes trying out more than one coupon before finding the right one.

They finally complete their purchase, with or without a discount applied.

• Collect user insights via interviews, surveys, and online feedback
• Understand friction points analyzing live pages usage data

• Develop a framework and define the metrics to drive improvement
  
• Use an iterative testing method: iterate based on qualitative results

• Improve design and functionalities on retailer pages and the home page
• Validate the improvements using the defined metrics through live and A/B tests
• Implement the validated solutions and continuously monitor their performance

We conducted interviews and surveys to identify and map the pain points of our users. As a result, we found two major challenges that users face.

• The Pain Loop is the most frustrating part of the user journey. Users often struggle to identify the voucher that works for them and end up trying multiple vouchers which leads to an increase in frustration every time a coupon doesn't work.
• Users generally perceive couponing platforms as fraudulent and spamming which raises concerns about trustworthiness.

• The information is not clearly communicated to the user
• On-page navigation is difficult, especially on mobile, which represents 70% of the traffic
• Content discoverability can improve through the home page

Redesigning user interfaces on the basis of user testing can substantially improve usability. In four case studies, the median improvement in overall usability was 165% from the first to the last iteration, and the median improvement per iteration was 38%

Jakob Nielsen, “Iterative User Interface Design”

The iterative design method involves testing early-stage ideas with a small group of users and continuously iterating on the results to improve platform usability.

The hierarchy of problems is defined using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, where the lower needs must be fulfilled before moving on to higher ones. According to this prioritization, the first focus is on the basic requirements, such as ease of use and trustworthiness.

We then created a framework to measure improvements in user experience.
Based on the correlation between the metrics:

• Trustworthiness and ease of use are directly influenced by the content quality
• The ease of use influences the trustworthiness of the page
• Increasing ease of use and trustworthiness is increasing satisfaction 

I found myself having to scroll up and down to remember which voucher was the better one to use. If they were grouped by either the department, the percentage off, or the expiration date, it would eliminate that friction. 

The long list of vouchers is perceived as overwhelming and difficult to discern and it is only possible to filter by voucher type (i.e. codes or deals). Moreover, there is no possibility of altering the sorting of the voucher list. 

The new design aims to help users find what they are looking for, grouping offers based on what makes sense to them. This was defined through usage analysis, a card sorting test, and usability tests.

When I'm on this website I already have a product in mind, and I just need to find out if there is any offer here that I could use to get a discount on it

The main objective of this part of the project is to revamp the homepage to be more user-centric. Currently, it is primarily used for selling visibility spots to retailers. However, it should be redesigned to clearly showcase the value proposition of the platform and instill users with trust in the platform. 

There are two primary use cases for the homepage: 

• Navigational purpose - Users visit the homepage with a specific product in mind and aim to quickly find a page that lists all vouchers for that product. 
  
  
• Inspirational purpose - Users land on the homepage to check if there are interesting discounts available for the retailers or categories they are interested in.