In-home sessions with passionate buyers surfaced emotional drivers of purchase behavior and helped inform eBay’s move toward curated, personalized shopping experiences.
Visiting top sellers in their warehouses revealed workflow challenges and UI gaps that shaped key seller tools and informed improvements to listing efficiency.
Ethnographic fieldwork in real environments enabled cross-functional teams to observe unmet needs firsthand, building empathy and influencing executive decisions at scale.
Methods:
In-Home Observation | Deep Dive Interviews | Data Analytics
Challenge:
Samsung’s feature-rich smart fridge lacked real-world context—analytics showed what users did, but not why. Teams had open questions around feature adoption, usability, and the role of voice (Bixby), but risked optimizing for the wrong behaviors. We needed to understand how the Family Hub fit into everyday routines, uncover points of friction, and align teams on actionable insights before market launch.
Process:
We conducted a longitudinal in-home study with 10 families using early Family Hub prototypes. Each home was visited twice by our team to capture real-life cooking, communication, and organizational behaviors.
Before visits, we partnered with analytics to identify usage drop-offs, helping us focus on key features like recipes and voice. In the field, we combined ethnographic observation, light usability testing, and contextual interviews. We also collaborated with the Bixby team to explore how voice could reduce friction in common kitchen tasks.
This approach helped us connect behavioral insights to usage data, guiding product and engineering priorities.
Solution:
We uncovered a key friction point: the screen timed out during recipe use, disrupting cooking. We worked with the product team to keep the screen active and added core voice commands like “next” and “repeat” for hands-free use.
We also found that low voice engagement stemmed from unclear value and poor discoverability. By repositioning Bixby around high-friction moments, we improved its relevance. These changes were made before launch, reducing risk and delivering a more intuitive, family-friendly experience.
eBay’s homepage during a time of transformation—as the company shifted from auctions to a more retail-like experience, user insights were essential to regaining trust and relevance.