Demystifying cannabis when shopping online

Budler’s overall aim was to allow users of cannabis to make informed purchase decisions online. Through user interviews and competitor analysis, we found that product information was often missing, inconsistent, or even incorrect, while customers were having to hunt for information or getting overwhelmed by an unsorted list of hard to distinguish choices.

Starting at the core

Initial roadmaps and strategy

We set out to build an industry changing online e-commerce platform for cannabis. But we knew we needed to start at the core of customer pain points, gain insights, and iterate before moving to other areas of the user journey. Customers needed to be able to browse products of all types easily and efficiently and see all relevant product details that would inform if they should buy. The storefront and product detail pages were the most complex and essential to the product I started there.

Cannabis is an extremely nuanced plant, and a product with physical and psychoactive effects. Not only that, but we learned quickly from customers and budtenders that the questions, concerns, and information across each product vertical varied greatly and would require different solutions.

Mobile-first, easily digestible hierarchy

Wireframes and prototyping

The industry was lacking in mobile friendly online e-commerce options and from user interviews we knew tackling the complexities of the information hierarchy and user flows on mobile would add value. Through wireframes and usability testing with prototyped designs we established the architecture for the storefront and product details.

Keeping information clearly blocked and consistent was an important part of building trust and reducing overwhelm with users, who were often getting dumped into a product list of hundreds of products. Through insights from user interviews, I iterated on the structure of having all categories browsable when scrolling, and ultimately designed a storefront where the user can only browse one category at a given time.

Easily seeing multiple products at once and scanning for differences was important to users, leading the design to be in a grid format. We developed custom “Good for” badges to highlight the type of effects through the activities best matched with each product, something that was repeatedly uncovered in interviews with users and budtenders. Going further, we highlighted the top level information differently depending on the product type: varying from THC/CBD percentage, to THC/CBD milligrams, to extraction method.

It’s all in the details

Beyond what we could show on a small product card, there were so many more product details that highly contributed to a user’s decision to purchase. I iterated on the hierarchy of information and used strategies like clear shapes and color blocking to differentiate information. While the design solution was important, the most complex part of this process were the strategy conversations across design, engineering and our budtender team (we called them our Budlers).

The robust data we needed to show users just didn’t exist in one place, so we decided to create it. While working through the designs we were also building out our internal database and tools for budtenders to enter additional information not readily available, like missing percentages, customized 3-tiered “Good for” matches, custom descriptions and found images that were more accurate. Sounds like a lot? It was, and it was all hands on deck.

We continued to iterate as we learned new information that users cared about like additional cannabinoids, and production practices (a combination of farming practices and practices around how products are made).

Ultimately, we need more time to gather data around how users navigate through the storefront and product details pages. Initial usability testing and user feedback indicate that users are able to scan quickly for the information they care about and extremely frequently call out being pleasantly surprised by how much information is available because it usually isn’t provided online. Even information users skim over is still noted and heightens user trust in the product overall.