Nordstrom:
Retail Technologies for the Kids Environment
UX Research Internship
Summer 2015
Executive Summary
This study aimed to understand customers’ expectations for existing digital experiences within the Nordstrom Kids Hut and Kids Department.
Research Questions
Our study investigated the following questions:
What are customer expectations for digital/interactive experiences for their children while shopping?
What are our customer’s expectations when it comes to the content of an interactive game for their children?
What aesthetics are most important to customers when it comes to gaming experiences for their children?
What recommendations for improvements do customers have for the current game offerings and overall experience?
What issues do customers encounter while playing with/assisting their children with a game from the Snowflake Suite?
What overall impressions do customers have on games from the Snowflake Suite?
Participants
A total of 10 children/parents were observed as they interacted with the Snowflake Suite inside of the Kids Hut at Store 4. From those 10 children, 3 parents agreed to participate in a short follow-up interview.
methods
3.5 hours were spent in Store 4 on August 4th conducting a combination of observational research and intercept interviews
Observations took place from a spot located by the upward escalator in-between kid’s apparel and kid’s shoes.
Observations were recorded using a pre-made observation checklist
If a parent assisted their child with a game from the Snowflake Suite, they were approached and asked to participate in a short survey to give feedback on their experience.
After a child finished playing, the Snowflake Suite would be reset to the menu screen in order to allow the next child to choose from all game options.
Key Findings
From the observations:
In the 3.5 hours spent in Store 4, only 10 children went into the Kid’s Hut.
This was a surprisingly low number compared to what we had anticipated.
The majority of families were shopping in the Kid’s Shoe Department rather than apparel, so the interactive Easels in Shoes had a larger amount of foot traffic than the Kid’s Hut.
The Easels were also in a convenient location on the wall and have several calls to action with the words “Play!” and “Create!” surrounding the screens, which could be a contributing factor.
Of the 10 children that interacted with the Snowflake Suite, only 4 parents followed their child into the hut and assisted them with the game.
Most parents “parked” their children in the hut and then proceeded to shop around while their kids played in the hut — similar to a babysitting service.
The Kid’s Hut attracted an equal ratio of boys and girls (50/50).
The average age of children playing in the hut was in the 3–5 year old age range.
Almost every child (8/10) chose to play the “Bugs” game from the 10 available games. When they played this game, the average interaction time was for 1 minute or longer.
The fact that most kids stayed engaged for 1 minute or longer was interesting because almost all of the children did not understand how to play the game.
Only 1 of the children that played “Bugs” identified how to exit out of the game and choose another game
The escape button can be found in the corner of the screen and must be selected first before the “X” button becomes available.
Figure 1. Screenshot from “Bugs” displaying how to pop out the exit menu
Figure 2. “Bugs” directions menu with text and demo picture
From the interviews:
Out of the 4 parents that met the inclusion criteria of having to have assisted their child with the Snowflake Suite, 3 agreed to participate in a short interview.
When asked which features stuck out to them, all participants (3/3) interviewed mentioned they really liked the sound features of the “Bugs” game.
P2: “I liked the sounds and my daughter seemed to react to them.”
All participants reported that the directions for the game were clear and understandable. However, a couple of participants (2/3) also indicated that they were not clear enough for the children because they are unable to read.
The game’s instructions had a demo picture, as well as written directions. The picture/visual instruction may not have been clear enough for the young users.
· All participants thought the “Bugs” game was fun for kids, but said the difficulty was too hard for children in the 5 and under age range.
As a result, participants recommended that we try to create games that stuck to the basics — such as building blocks or coloring applications.
A couple of participants (2/3) indicated that the Kid’s Hut makes shopping easier for them.
P3: “Yeah, definitely. I can look for clothes for him and he can play in the hut. It’s a win/win for both of us.”
Though the hut makes shopping easier, parents say they’re mostly interested in their children having an environment that they can have fun in.
When asked if they encountered any issues with the game while they assisted their child, participants did not mention anything about glitches or problems with the game itself.
However, participants reiterated that problems they experienced were with the level of difficulty of the game for their young child and “kids not fully understanding what to do because they can’t read directions.” (P1)
Recommendations Based on Findings
Some recommendations based on observation and interview data include:
1. Work on creating a more age-appropriate experience for the Kid’s Hut
Based on the feedback from our interview participants and store employees, we need to be more familiar with the age range of children using the hut moving forward.
2. If we choose to keep games in the Snowflake Suite in the store, we should make adjustments to difficulty levels of games. From there, we can retest in stores to see if the difficulty is better aligned with our users.
Though the “Bugs” game had successful features and content, the game presented too much difficulty for the children because they did not understand the directions of the game and could not circle bugs well enough when they were shown how to play.
The Snowflake Suite allows us to customize game settings, which could help us create a better experience for our young users.
If the proper settings are not available for these changes, then a request should be made to NUITEQ for this.
3. When we look towards creating a new experience for the Hut, we should keep our game design simplistic.
We got unanimous feedback from employees and parents that our games should stick to simplistic concepts.
Children can have fun with something as simple as a drawing application that allows them to have a finger painting experience.
Other suggestions from parents and employees were to create games that incorporated animals, building blocks/stacking element, or look and find/where’s waldo.
As long as the future applications are along these lines and attempt to engage sound, touch, and sight then they should have a good chance at becoming successful.
4. Consider offering only one game in the Kid’s Hut.
Even though children were provided with 10 options, nearly all (80%) chose to play the same game. As well as that, they only played one game.
If we were to continue offering a suite of games, we would need to reevaluate exit opportunities for users to go back to the home screen easier. We would also need to create icons that were understandable for children.
Only 1 child went back to the home screen and played a game. This could have been because other children did not know how to get back or because they weren’t interested in playing anymore after playing once.
“Bugs” could have been the game played most often because of the familiarity of the icon.
5. When creating a new experience for the Hut, consider the importance of clear and age appropriate instructions.
Our customers expressed that the directions/instructions were not clear enough for children that use the hut.
If we stick to simplistic/basic game design, we may not even need directions.
Other options to consider would be to use pictures that show the user how to play, picture tutorials, or even a short walk through tutorial before they begin to play on their own.
6. Consider trying out the Snowflake Suite on the Easels in Store 4, as the Easels attracted more customer engagement than the Hut.
Did not have the bandwidth to observe everything that was going on around the Easels and their current applications during the study at hand, but it was clear that there was more foot traffic and a wider range of ages.
This could be a more successful location to fully test out the game suite because of the call to action the location holds (“play!” / “create!”) and the foot traffic/age ranges.
7. Balloons were an important aspect of the Kid’s Shoe Department. It could be fun to explore ways to relate the Easels back to those balloons.
Almost every child in Kid’s shoes and apparel was walking around with a balloon in their hand, tied to their wrist, or tied to the stroller.
This could include creating an application that incorporates Nordstrom balloons, or just balloons in general.