PURPLE MATTRESS

BRIDGING ONLINE AND OFFLINE

Project Goal

Purple is an online-focused mattress company with innovative technology in their mattresses. I had been working with the user experience and customer insights team at Purple for several years, performing qualitative research projects to better understand their customer, and creating a customer journey map.

The business goal of this research study was to understand opportunities for improving the digital Purple shopping experience based on the in-store mattress shopping. As most shoppers see in-store shopping as the most helpful part of the process we wanted to take inspiration from the in-store shopping experience as to how we could improve the digital shopping experience.

The goal of the project was to run a “Secret Shopper” study where participants would visit the Purple or a competitor’s website as well as a store and share their experiences and thoughts.

Research Goals

The research goal of this project was to understand how salespeople in store are selling mattresses in general and Purple mattresses specifically.

We also wanted to understand shoppers’ impressions of Purple during the important in-store test drive. These in-store findings would help inform how the mattresses were discussed and presented on the Purple website.

Summary of Purple Customer Journey Map that I created through extensive ethnographic user research, digital think-alouds and analysis of quantitative user data

My Role

I owned the entire research process from end-to-end, providing the Purple team with ongoing updates. My role as the research lead included:

  • Planning and designing research protocol and study questions

  • Selecting research participants

  • Facilitating research via longitudinal diary study in dscout

  • Analyzing research data for insights and key themes

  • Preparing research summary presentation to share with stakeholders

This research study involved a lot of coordination of participants because there were 26 participants across 5 different brands and 2 research protocols.

Results

One result of this research was to add clear, visual indicators of the mattress’s key characteristics for easier comparison online.

This research study yielded a rich set of qualitative data and significantly helped the Purple team better understand their customer and mattress shoppers in general. Specific results include:

  • Updates across the Purple website to key pages including homepage, product comparison page, and product detail page

  • Prioritization of their digital roadmap

  • Insights shared with many cross-functional stakeholders including the Board of Directors and CEO

  • Improved wholesale employee education about the benefits of Purple with specific talking points to better communicate product benefits

Research Process and Approach

Research Methods

Participants used the video diary tool dscout to share their experiences shopping on a mattress brand’s website and store. Dscout is an online resource platform to capture video and context-rich research data. Dscout was a good match for this project because it allows the researcher to capture insights across time and across shopping channels easily.

Participants screen recorded visits to the mattress brand’s website and gave additional thoughts on video after the visit. They also video recorded their in-store test drives to get in the moment reactions to testing out a mattress. 

I wrote the research study and tasks, tailoring the questions to the best research practices for the dscout platform.

Analysis Process 

After the study was complete, I reviewed all participant submissions and took notes on all important points and quotes. I then affinitized or grouped the key insights to pull out insight statements and key themes in the data.

I then capture these themes in a research summary presentation as well as recommendations of what the stakeholders should do with the findings. I also include videos and photos from the research to illustrate key themes. This multi-media approach allowed the stakeholders to hear the customer’s thoughts and experiences in their own words.

Affinitized findings from the website portion of the secret shopper

Additional Research Projects

I have led a variety of research projects with Purple to understand a variety of topics including:

  • Overall customer journey of a mattress customer, from awareness to shopping to usage

  • Omni-channel shopping process and opportunities for improving the digital mattress shopping experience based on the in-store shopping experience

  • User experience and pain points during the mattress unboxing experience

  • User feedback on new mattress prototypes

Additional Research Methods

In order to answer the variety of research goals, I have led and implemented a variety of research techniques

  • Digital think aloud protocols

  • Moderated interviews (remote and in-person)

  • Ethnographic interviews and home visits

  • Diary studies

  • Customer surveys