Nutrisystem
A Case Study: Personalization Initiative
OBJECTIVE
Create a personalized experience for customers choosing to order a custom Nutrisystem meal plan. Test personalization flow and redesign according to user response. Launch updates for Diet Season 2020.
MY ROLE
Workshopping, wireframing, benchmarking, script writing for unmoderated usability testing, benchmarking, live interviews, data collection, data presentation, development.
PROJECT DETAILS
When the world enters into a new year, resolutions are made and millions of people strive for personal growth. That period of time is what we at Nutrisystem call "Diet Season". In preparation for "Diet Season" 2020, Nutrisystem's site optimization team launched a development project to personalize the meal plan building experience for customers. A large part of this project was to have the user complete a quiz in order to be matched with a personalized meal plan that they could later choose to keep or customize.
​
The early stages of brainstorming for this project resulted in positive feedback from customers. My team used live user testing with our early wireframes to decide if this idea would be received well by customers. I played a larger role in the mid and final stages of development that are outlined below.
Step 1
Work with the creative team and front-end developers to build prototypes of the new sales funnel that included the new rate card, the quiz flow, and the shipping page.
Step 2
Brainstorm what I as a researcher wanted to learn from the customers about this experience.
Step 3
Write the scripts for usability testing. One script would lead the customers through a specific experience to then provide feedback after the fact. Another script would allow the testees to navigate the mock test flow freely and unencumbered.
Step 4
Launch usability testing beginning with the pilot to test the initial script.
Step 5
Record the results and create a formal write-up.
Step 6
Present the results to the Director of E-commerce and the site-optimization team.
Step 7
Rinse and repeat! User research requires that user feedback be prioritized throughout the entire process. This project required going through the seven steps multiple times to refine the experience for our customers.
Example of a draft script for moderated user testing
RESULTS
Initially, to expedite the launch for the quiz, a streamlined testing process was used; consequently, the resulting quiz take-rate was lower than expected. Subsequent unmoderated and live usability testing uncovered two customer complaints. The first issue was that customers were not expecting to be matched with a brand new personalized plan; instead, they expected to be matched with one of Nutrisystem's existing meal plans. The second issue the quiz was leading customers to one of the ready-made meal plans without transparency about the actual food included. This lead to high customer abandonment on the shipping page.
The UX designer and I reported the findings only to discover that our results matched what customers were reporting via Hotjar surveys, third-party chat apps, and the call center. The difficulty for customer service representatives to sell this new product launched a major user testing initiative to streamline the quiz process using the steps discussed above.
We were able to add the personalized experience to the existing plans in order to stave off any confusion between the two options. We redesigned the quiz flow and reframed the questions. We added more images of food to the quiz results page and a pop-up that described the meals within the non-customizable plan option.
​
​
​