SEO & UX/UI DESIGN BLOG

User Research Project

Researching Online Shopping Behaviour

Online Shopping Store: MANGO

This user research project con­sist­ed in con­duct­ing in-depth inter­views with users to learn about their online shop­ping expe­ri­ences, habits and main moti­va­tions. Based on the main insights from the user research, it was pos­si­ble to sug­gest mul­ti­ple design solu­tions to address the pro­posed chal­lenge and improve online shop­ping expe­ri­ence.

(This project is a case study con­duct­ed as part of a UX-UI course)

mango homepage

Project Overview

  • My role: UX/UI design­er 
  • Project dura­tion: 15 days 
  • Method­ol­o­gy: Analy­sis, User Inter­views 
  • Tools: Fig­Jam, Zoom

Challenge

The MANGO online shop­ping store is fac­ing a high­er user drop-off rate, as a por­tion of users add items to the shop­ping cart and aban­don it with­out final­is­ing the pur­chase. The brand seeks to under­stand the caus­es behind the shop­ping cart drop-off.

Project Goal

Iden­ti­fy the rea­sons behind the high­er user drop-off rate from the MANGO shop­ping cart and pro­pose design solu­tions to reduce it.

BACKGROUND

MANGO is one of the biggest cloth­ing brands in Spain. Well-known across the world, MANGO stands out as a good-qual­i­ty and afford­able brand.

Like many oth­ers, it is not immune to fast-fash­ion draw­backs; how­ev­er, what its cus­tomers val­ue most is its empha­sis on nat­ur­al mate­ri­als, vari­ety of styles, and low­er cost.

mango mockup

User Research

The research was focused on under­stand­ing MANGO users and their shop­ping behav­iour, includ­ing their moti­va­tions and the main aspects they val­ue in the shop­ping process. It was impor­tant to under­stand the user jour­ney and explore the key pain points and frus­tra­tions users face dur­ing the shop­ping process, as well as iden­ti­fy the exact moment they decide to leave the online store with­out final­is­ing the pur­chase

Objectives

✅ Learn about user expe­ri­ences and expec­ta­tions when shop­ping online

✅ Under­stand user moti­va­tions when adding items to a cart

✅ Iden­ti­fy com­mon fric­tion points in the shop­ping expe­ri­ence

✅ Under­stand why users aban­don the shop­ping cart and decide not to com­plete the pur­chase.

User Interviews

Qual­i­ta­tive research in the form of inter­views with a rel­e­vant sam­ple of users was con­duct­ed.

Par­tic­i­pant Selec­tion Cri­te­ria: The pri­ma­ry con­di­tion for user selec­tion was that par­tic­i­pants had vis­it­ed and nav­i­gat­ed through MANGO’s online store at least once.

Participants

👥 6 female par­tic­i­pants, aged 25–45

👥 All had pre­vi­ous­ly inter­act­ed with MANGO’s online store

👥 Recruit­ed through per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al net­works

Methods

🔍 1‑on‑1 struc­tured inter­views via Zoom (30–45 min­utes each)

🔍 Map­ping in Fig­Jam to ana­lyze behav­iors and out­line insights

🔍 User per­sona syn­the­sis to rep­re­sent key user arche­types

Main User Research Findings

Shop­ping Cart is Mis­used

Users treat the cart like a wish­list or book­mark­ing tool—not just a place for ready-to-buy items.

Immer­sive Online Shop­ping

Users crave an online shop­ping expe­ri­ence that close­ly mir­rors real-life inter­ac­tions.

Trans­paren­cy is High­ly Val­ued

Users val­ue trans­par­ent prod­uct infor­ma­tion, and cus­tomer sup­port when buy­ing items online.

Main User Personas

Key Insights

The shop­ping cart has mul­ti­ple func­tion­al­i­ties and uses (Wish­list, cost overview, com­par­i­son tool) that go beyond its func­tion­al­i­ty as an online shop­ping tool.

Key Insight

Users like to have near real-life expe­ri­ence while safe­ly brows­ing from their sofa.

Insight

Our users like to get what they need quick­ly and with no inter­rup­tions.
Trans­paren­cy and real­is­tic prod­uct rep­re­sen­ta­tion is impor­tant for the users to trust a brand.

Insight

Common Pain Points, Insights & Design Solutions

Unclear prod­uct and shop­ping infor­ma­tion

Solu­tion: trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion about the prod­ucts and the ship­ping times.

Incor­rect prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty details

Solu­tion: high­light­ing that the prod­uct is out of stock and they can save it for lat­er 

Lack of ship­ping cost trans­paren­cy

Solu­tion: Include trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion about the ship­ping costs

Key Insight

🔍 User research has revealed that there are dif­fer­ent uses of the shop­ping cart because not every user vis­its the online store with a clear intent to make a pur­chase. Some users use it as a com­par­i­son tool or a wish­list.

🔍 THE SHOPPING CART IS SOMETIMES USED AS A WISHLIST

✅ Solu­tion: Dif­fer­en­ti­ate “Add to cart” CTA but­ton from the “Wish­list”.

✅ Solu­tion: Enable the “Save to Wish­list” option for both, reg­is­tered and unreg­is­tered users.

This way, the users will be sav­ing the items to the Wish­list, which will reduce the mis­use of the shop­ping cart. Reduced mis­use of the shop­ping cart will have a pos­i­tive impact on the aban­don rate.

mango product page
Man­go prod­uct page

How­ev­er, in the case of Man­go, this solu­tion helps the users with reg­is­tered accounts but won’t assist unreg­is­tered users under the cur­rent set­up. Cur­rent­ly, the option to aggre­gate items to the Wish­list is only avail­able for the reg­is­tered users.

H&M solves this issue enabling the users that are not reg­is­tered to save items as favorites. This way, the user does not have to rely on the shop­ping cart to save items, which can reduce the drop off rate.

h&m product page
H&M prod­uct page

Key Learnings

Fea­tures Ensur­ing a Good Online Shop­ping Expe­ri­ence

  • CUSTOMER REVIEWS sup­port­ing dif­fer­ent cloth­ing items make the users feel safer when mak­ing a deci­sion on mak­ing a pur­chase.
  • USEFUL, STRAIGHTFORWARD PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS to sat­is­fy user needs and offer all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion, and this way cre­ate more real-life kind of shop­ping expe­ri­ence.
  • WELL ORGANISED PRODUCT CATALOGUE & FUNCTIONAL FILTERS stream­line the brows­ing process, mak­ing it easy for the users to find what they need.
  • DETAILED SIZE GUIDELINES AND SIMULATORS are very help­ful in sup­port­ing the users when mak­ing deci­sion on pur­chas­ing items online. These tools ensure a more inter­ac­tive shop­ping expe­ri­ence, increase con­ver­sions, and reduce return rates.
mango-online-store-mobile
user-research-image
  • REALISTIC PHOTOS (accu­rate colour rep­re­sen­ta­tion, diverse, relat­able mod­els) bring the online shop­ping expe­ri­ence more clos­er to real­i­ty by pro­vid­ing cus­tomers with a clear­er and more accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of prod­ucts.
  • LIVE CHAT SUPPORT for real-time assis­tance brings online shop­ping clos­er to real-life expe­ri­ence and increas­es trust.
  • FABRIC CARE INSTRUCTIONS set the brand as knowl­edgable and car­ing about qual­i­ty and how to pre­serve the items.
  • NON MANDATORY ACCOUNT CREATION (abil­i­ty to pur­chase or save items as favourites with­out reg­is­tra­tion).
  • FAST-LOADING SITE with a quick, secure check­out process.
  • IN-HOUSE SECOND-HAND MARKETPLACE to enable the users resell sec­ond hand cloth­ing items they pur­chased from your brand. This way attract the users that are envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and sup­port cir­cu­lar econ­o­my.

Project Reflection

The project rein­forced the impor­tance of lis­ten­ing deeply to users to real­ly under­stand the why behind their behav­iors. What may look like inde­ci­sion or drop-off can actu­al­ly be a sign of strate­gic shop­ping.

Next Steps

👋 Col­lab­o­rate with design­ers to incor­po­rate the pro­posed design solu­tions and build high-fideli­ty pro­to­types

👋 Con­duct usabil­i­ty test­ing to assess and val­i­date the pro­posed solu­tions and user inter­ac­tions.

👋 Bench­mark & ana­lyze busi­ness impact using the estab­lished con­ver­sion met­rics

.

Related projects

Improv­ing the User Jour­ney

Case Study: User Jour­ney Assess­ment & UI Design