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Summary
In this talk, Erin tells stories about the lessons she brought with her from brick-and-mortar retail into the world of e-commerce. She draws parallels between what we do building digital products and what shopkeepers of yesteryear have taught us (and likely forgot). She also shares some fun experiment examples that were inspired by serving customers face-to-face in a physical shop.
Key Insights
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Experimentation should be the default approach in product design, treating every change as a hypothesis to test rather than relying on opinion.
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Physical retail experiences like window displays, sales signage, and impulse buy items provide powerful analogies for designing digital product experiences.
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Opening search results in new tabs, mimicking physical browsing, reduces user anxiety about losing their place and improves engagement.
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Color choices to indicate sales or free offers must be culturally sensitive and tested, as meanings of colors like red and green vary globally.
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Designing for accessibility, such as adjusting color contrasts for colorblind users, is not only ethical and legal but also improves overall business performance.
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Offering visible and up-to-date promotional information digitally parallels physical coupon mailers and boosts user confidence in completing purchases.
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Employee or user recommendation labels, like those in physical stores (e.g., Trader Joe's), create authentic connection and perform well when integrated digitally.
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Even seemingly small UI changes, like changing strikeout price color, can have large positive impacts on conversion when properly tested.
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Laziness in physical retail led Aaron to discover the importance of easy product accessibility; similarly, reducing friction digitally enhances sales.
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Statistical significance thresholds can be adjusted pragmatically in low-traffic situations to still obtain useful insights from experiments.
Notable Quotes
"Everything is an experiment."
"We are the shopkeepers of today; it just looks a little bit different."
"Google is the digital equivalent of the local shopping mall or the local main street."
"Power users would right click and open listings in new tabs to keep their place in search results."
"Color is highly subjective and culturally relevant; what works for sale in one market might not work in another."
"An accessible product is not only the right thing to do, it’s also good for business."
"People connect with other people, even through screens, so employee recommendations matter digitally too."
"You have to make everything easily accessible; friction drives customers away."
"If you don’t test, you’re relying on opinion, which can drastically degrade the customer experience."
"Sometimes laziness can be a virtue if it leads to big impact with little work."
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