Sephora UX Research Study
I conducted research into how Sephora shoppers move between in-store and mobile experiences. Through interviews, ethnography, a competitive teardown, and usability testing, we identified five friction points across the app, checkout, and conversational AI, and recommended changes to reduce cart abandonment. A key finding: Sephora’s tedious account creation and cluttered UI significantly slowed checkout.
Role:
UX Researcher
Team
Team of 3
Findings
01
Timeline
6 Weeks
Methods
Competitive Teardown
Ethnography
Usaiblity Testing
Research Areas
In-store and online shopping habits, including how users engage with their phones while browsing in-store
Competitive benchmarking of the Sephora app against key competitors, evaluating whether core user journeys could be completed with ease
Checkout pain points and cart abandonment triggers
Evaluation of conversational AI, benchmarked against Target's implementation
02
The majority of beauty consumers use online tools AI, social media etc to discover beauty products but prefer to visit stores to purchase their products.
In store the Sephora app was typically only used at loyalty to checkout.
03
Sephora’s account making process significantly increases users’ checkout times.
04
Users found the account making process tedious and found the UI cluttered.