Cancel subscription in Aftonbladet.
A research on the importance of building trust and transparency at the end of the customer journey.
About the project
The purpose of the project is to investigate and see how the experience of canceling the subscription can be better for the users through the Design Thinking method. This is to increase the credibility of Aftonbladet as a product and reduce costs in customer support.
Client: Aftonbladet
Role: UX/UI Designer
Project: Master thesis
Programs: Sketch
Date: Maj / 2020
Methods:
- Interviews
- Usability-testing
- Benchmarking
- Prototypes
- Wireframes
Design Thinking.
Research | Define | Ideate | Prototype | Test
Research.
Interviews, 6 ppl.
I begin this journey by getting to know my users needs when they come across a paid (closed) article. Through 6 interviews with subscribed and non-subscribed persons, I got to learn about their needs in their costume journey. I found out 2 key factors that made the users subscribe to Aftonbladet.
Price
"Cancel subscription" information
Custom support and their insight.
I found out that 8/10 users contacted custom support with complaints about wanting help to cancel their subscription.
Custom support is an external company that charge per min with each user. Those mail had a disappointed and some of them an angry tone. Resulting in a bad experience because they felt deceived.
It’s important to take in minde that the user target is wide and some of them can have visual disability, causing frustration and cause problems.
How can i cancel my subscription?
I decided to investigate how canceling the subscription goes and I came across that the process was a tedious journey. With 10 steps to make this possible.
Define.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking services such as e.g. New York Times, Netflix, Viaplay and showed different solutions on how to help the user when they cancel their subscription. This, together with previous questions, was the basis for the questions in our qualitative interviews.
Problem statement for the concept development
How might we create trust in our users when they want to subscribe to AB?
How might we be more transparent with information on how to cancel a subscription?
How can we lower the customer support for Aftonbladet?
Ideate.
Hypothesis on how to make the experience better when cancelling.
Empathise more "Cancel subscription whenever" so the user can quickly find the information and possibly increase conversion
Be more transparent about how to unsubscribe to build trust with our users when they buy.
Provide the user with the tool to make it easy to unsubscribe
Have "Cancel subscription" in the menu
Decrease cost in customer support with new design
Increase typography making it more accessible
Prototype
Low-fidelity prototype
I designed low-fidelity solutions so i could get fast info before i went further with the design. With this I also wanted to understand the user, how they think, behave, feel and too empathise when they are canceling their subscription.
Steps.
I have short down the user flow to 4 steps for cancel subscription. With new copy and big green check icon to clearly inform the user that they have unsubscribe successfully.
Adding copy in the navicon.
Adding “Cancel subscription” in the navicon meny following regular procedure. And to make more path to unsubscribe.
Custom support design guidelines
- Increase fonts from 12px to 18px to improve accessibility.
- Larger click area with underlining for color blind.
- Clearer and shorter instructions.
Test
User testing plan
The usability test was planed with a flexibel manuscript. The scenario for the user was: How do you proceed too unsubscribe on Aftonbladet?
The results was expected, validating the problem. And thats was that it’s hard to cancel the subscription even for mature digital users and young people.
Findings
2/3 ppl had difficult to find account setting because it doesn’t look like the standar version (navicon).
Long process and too much click to get to the final action.
User try to find in the search motor “cancel subscription” and get instead 800 articles with that word
2/3 ppl Scroll to the bottom and decided contact customer service
Navicon (Account settings). Exempel with the users initials (in this mine, GC) and Aftonbladet symbol.
“A little confusing, not straightforward. I don’t perceive it as information (navicon). I proceed from past experiences that are standard, and I search this way. If I don't find it after 2-3 attempts then I get confused. The login button is not clear ”
— Male 25 years
Iteration. New wireframe.
Recommendation
Incorporate “Cancel subscription” in the search motor
Copy for the navicon with the text “account”
Create new wireframe for “Cancel subscription” process so the user can have a quick solution to their need and with a minimal design without visual noise.
Summary.
The interesting thing with this project was that the brief was too found out how to convert more users to Aftonbladet. But through the first round of interviews the answer was that it was very important to be able to unsubscribe whenever the user wanted. This was key information that made me research more about how the process to cancel looks like, which was long and difficult to find.
So the idea with the new design proposition is to make it easier to “cancel the subscription” so the user leaves happy, resulting in reducing cost in costume services. Making this a long term solution by improving the experience and building a loyal relationship with the users.