Collaborating with a leading retail company in the United States, I participated in the discovery phase to improve the module for reporting suspicious sellers. The focus was on understanding how users request help and report issues.
The action of reporting suspicious sellers is sensitive, impacting both the affected party and the seller’s reputation. We explored various scenarios through role-playing and identified two primary user mindsets:
Anger due to being scammed (with or without grounds).
Vigilance due to suspicion of a potential scam.
We analyzed competitor approaches via:
Organic search queries like “how to report a suspicious seller on Amazon/eBay.”
Directly accessing the Help Center of Amazon/eBay.
Reviewing the product or purchase modules.
ROL:
UI/UX designer.
2022 │ UX Research │
Avoiding dark patterns in the Help Center module.
EXPLORE MORE PROJECTS
DirecTV Go (dGo) OTT design system. (Protected)
Verizon Family Money design system. (Protected)
W+ Membership feature for improved users flexibility.
We hypothesized that the ease or difficulty of reporting could be influenced by business considerations, such as the capacity to manage reports and preventing exaggerated claims. Our analysis showed two different strategies:
Amazon: Utilizes restrictive measures and dark patterns, making direct support difficult to access.
eBay: Focuses on education to avoid unfounded reports, offering clear guidelines on valid reporting reasons and allowing users to recover from errors.
During the first half of 2023, the page remained inactive. It was also common to find articles explaining how to report or pointing out the difficulties encountered in doing so.
Heuristic evaluation during the Competitive Analysis.
DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS & RECOMMENDATIONS:
Our research highlighted the importance of contextual entry points, user education, and aligning the user’s mental model with the reporting process. As of 2024, Amazon, one of our main competitors, has validated our research by integrating suspicious activity reporting content directly into their help center, as we had anticipated.
Contextual Reporting: Expanded entry points for reporting and considered the emotional state of users.
Educational Approach: Provided information to prevent unfounded reports.
User Control: Ensured users knew the appropriate channels for reporting and could back out if necessary.