Visual Typeahead Search Experience
After enduring a basic text based search for too long, I made a redesigned visual typeahead search top priority. It had to contain product images, category labels, and top item results even though we could only serve product family results, but we found ways to boost relevenat items so customers got what they wanted: immediate visual confirmation, reduced friction, and a lift revenue as users got the items they needed.
Research, analysis, and design process and discoveries
After getting stakeholders and contributors on board with the planned changes, I shared the plans with the contributors so each could execute with the high level plans themselves without too many touchpoints.
- Analyzed behavioral data in GA and Bloomreach analytics, as well as Glassbox to map user’s behaviors across the search to purchase funnel
- Directed methods of surfacing child items in searches when product parent families are the sole entities the CMS recognized
- Found inconsistencies on item SKUs listings within product families that had 240v equipment instead of 120v listed first which presented European products at the top too often when US were vastly desired
- Worked within existing global header and search infrastructure to avoid extra rebuild work
- Worked embedded with buyers search tendencies to constantly improve search away from simple category name searches and into more complicated longer sentence type searches to surface honed product results over broad results that made users have to hunt
What this project had to work within
The solution had to integrate within the existing global header and search infrastructure, support 40,000+ SKUs with complex specifications and variants, and be delivered under limited development bandwidth requiring focused, high-impact design decisions.
What success looked like
- Retain users previous interactions and ability to customize their search to serve their needs
- Surface the most relevant and most-purchased products in typeahead results
- Enable direct add to cart functionality from within search results
- Increase conversion efficiency across the search experience
- Improve clarity and minimize unnecessary page transitions before a user reaches the right product
All goals achieved
The visual search redesign achieved all target goals by surfacing relevant products with immediate visual context and enabling direct add to cart functionality within the typeahead dropdown. It minimized unnecessary page transitions and reduced cognitive overload for users searching across complex scientific product families.
The updated search experience contributed to a meaningful increase in search driven revenue, demonstrating the measurable impact of reducing friction in the product discovery funnel for a highly technical B2B audience.