Modernizing the 23andMe Shopping Experience

MODERNIZING THE PURCHASING EXPERIENCE

The goal was to modernize the 23andMe public site to streamline the purchasing process. The primary purpose of the public site was to educate potential customers about 23andMe's offerings and facilitate the purchase of DNA testing kits. At the time, 23andMe offered three service tiers: Ancestry, Health + Ancestry, and Premium.

PROBLEM STATEMENT 1

The 23andMe landing page was a good example of the issues that had accumulated on the 23andMe public sight over the years. The landing page was bombarded by call-to-actions (CTAs), showing three that were all different: Shop, Buy now, and Shop now. The multiple CTAs were disorienting and diluted the user’s focus, making it harder for customers to make a decision and take action.

PROBLEM STATEMENT 2

There were two main flows that the customers were taken through to purchase a kit: “shop” and “buy”. Customers who clicked on CTAs with 'Shop' were taken through one flow, while those who clicked on CTAs with 'Buy' were guided through a different flow.
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However, the differences in these flows were not immediately clear to the customer as most users would not have an intuitive understanding of the difference between "shop" and "buy". Additionally, neither flow was optimized for the user.

SHOP FLOW

Clicking buttons with 'Shop' directed customers to a page explaining the different service types, which led them to their cart once they clicked 'Order'. While this flow allowed them to preview the services before they made a decision, this flow had several cons:

Customers could only add one kit before being directed to their cart. This potentially limited the number of kits users added to their cart.
Users could only add a Premium kit to their cart if they had already added a Health and Ancestry kit. The upgrade option for Premium kits would only appear in the cart if at least one Health and Ancestry kit had already been added. This potentially limited the number of customers purchasing the Premium service.
A third CTA "order" was added to the flow even though it behaved exactly like the "buy" CTA. Having a third CTA that behaved exactly the same as an existing CTA was unnecessarily confusing and disorienting.

BUY FLOW

Clicking on buttons with the “Buy” CTA took customers directly to the cart. While customers were able to add multiple kits to their carts this flow had multiple cons:

It would be unclear on how to add a premium kit to their cart without adding a health kit first.
The customer lacked context about what each service type included.
Customers did not necessarily choose the service type that was added to their cart.
Promotions were not accurately being reflected in the cart.

COMPETETIVE ANALYSIS

I conducted competitive analysis on subscription-based services like Adobe, Netflix, and Peloton to understand how they sell multiple products, guide users to the most relevant options, and communicate service value. This research also helped me identify industry-standard design patterns for shopping experiences.

SOLUTIONS

UI IMPROVEMENTS

Even small adjustments to the user interface such as a persistent cart icon and updating the "Shop now" CTA to "Learn more" significantly enhanced the user experience, eliminating the overwhelming barrage of 'Buy' and 'Shop Now' prompts. "Learn more" was also a more intuitive CTA that was used widely cross across competitors.

ADD TO CART

Next, I replaced the 'Buy now' CTA with 'Add to cart,' another more intuitive and widely recognized CTA. I also updated the functionality to allow users to add multiple kits to their cart before proceeding, creating a smoother and more seamless shopping experience.

SERVICE QUIZ

In my competitive analysis, Lightroom's quiz-based approach stood out, guiding users to the right service based on their interests rather than by overwhelming them with choices. Adopting this strategy could drive users toward premium offerings by highlighting popular conditions that were included in the service (e.g. BRCA, diabetes, heart disease).

Additionally, collecting this information around the user's interest in 23andMe could also help personalize the user's experience further along in the customer journey.

CONCLUSION

In modernizing the 23andMe public site, I streamlined CTAs, redesigned the shopping flow, and introduced personalized recommendations, creating a more seamless and intuitive user experience. Through strategic thinking and innovative solutions, I improved usability and aligned the site with industry standards removing potential friction from the purchasing process.

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