My role and responsibilities:
- Senior UX Designer: ideation, UX/UI design, prototyping, cross-functional collaboration (tech, product, design systems, vendor)
- Research: Usability research
About this project:
Amazon’s existing search experience often overwhelmed customers with lower technical knowledge—especially when shopping for complex products like laptops. Research showed that these customers preferred personalized guidance and often turned to external sources for help. To address this gap, I designed a live chat support experience to assist customers using broad, upper-funnel queries like “laptop.”
The challenge:
Non-technical shoppers struggled to narrow down product options on their own. The sheer volume of choices and technical jargon led to confusion, abandoned searches, or reliance on external advisement. Amazon needed a way to provide in-the-moment guidance without disrupting the overall shopping experience. This would help reduce the risk of customers researching and shopping elsewhere, whether that was other websites or at brick and mortar stores.
The solution:
I launched a desktop-first live chat support tool connecting customers with technical experts. These experts gathered usage requirements and guided customers to the best-fit product. This mimicked the experience of going to a brick and mortar store and talking to a sales representative. The initial rollout focused on laptops, with plans to expand to other electronics categories based on early success and customer feedback.
Results:
6-week post launch snapshot:
- 197K impressions
- Average order greater than $500
Desktop designs:
Additional process artifacts:
Amara Hulslander | UX Designer & Educator 