This project was specified as a request to increase the number of tariffs displayed in a sales journey from four to ten.
The initial UX work was a piece of prediscovery to determine:
The optimum number of results to display
The viability and effectiveness of sorting / filtering on the pages with as many as ten results
Could multiple tariffs be displayed as cross-sell-upsell options
Desktop research
The initial research was concerned with the known issues to do with paradox of choice (more options will often paralyse users into doing nothing).
There was, concurrently a 'low-hanging fruit' option in that we couls easily just add more options to our existing tariff styles.
Initial hypothesis - expand the desktop and the mobile responsive style
Mobile / responsive
I constructed an Axure prototype with a device to allow users to determine how many tariffs to view and identify their own 'sweet-spot' of tariffs displayed
Advancing the design
It was clear that five tariffs would be the optimum number for users to work with. However, by grouping tariffs into clusters of three or four under sub-headings, we were able to circumvent the paradox of choice effect by allowing users to focus on the list they were interested in. The use of filtering and sorting tools, enhanced this proposition, - with a task for future testing raised against that point.
By positioning multiple tariffs as single tariff with sub-options we found that users on the one hand, preferred the list of distinct tariffs, but on the other, were more likely to upsell themselves within a group.
The idea that there were ranges of e.g. green tariffs made sense to users. The grouping is a clearly a different offering defined by lifestyle/life choices. However, groupings with unclear distinction (e.g. fixed and flexible) were less clear to users who felt it was typically confusing for an energy company.
The concept for next round testing is that we will seek to further develop the categorised approach to tariffs and test to what extent upselling may work in our favour, even if the base interface is less optimal
