INDUSTRY
E-Commerce
YEAR
2024
CONTRIBUTION
UX Research
UX/UI Design
Design System
As a Product Design intern at Rakuten France, I collaborated with the Product Manager and Developer to improve the product review system on the web platform, boosting trust for both buyers and sellers.
Context
In today's e-commerce landscape, product reviews can make or break a purchase.
99.75% of online shoppers reading them at least sometimes, and 91% doing so always or regularly (PowerReviews, 2023). But when shoppers stop trusting those reviews, the system breaks too.
As a Product Design intern, I worked to close this gap, making reviews more transparent, reliable, and valuable for customers.
Challenge
At Rakuten France, the outdated product review system weakened trust and hindered a smooth user experience.
Key challenges:
Lack of trust signals → harder to verify authenticity
Inconsistent design → minor friction, broken visual consistency
Fully mandatory fields → lower review completion rate
With limited direct metrics, I relied on customer support insights and numerous internal inquiries to uncover recurring user frustrations and submission challenges.
Insight
Buyers struggled to trust unclear, unverified reviews, causing confusion and, at times, unfairly impacting sellers’ reputations.
Hypothesis
We focused on 3 areas: building trust with clear signals, streamlining the review flow, and unifying the cross-device experience—laying the groundwork for stronger engagement and growth.
Iteration
I led the redesign of the review box, integrating Design System updates and the voting/reporting feature.
I contributed to cross-functional efforts to improve trust and efficiency in the system. My key contributions included:
Worked closely with Engineers to ensure technical feasibility.
Collaborated with Product Managers from start to finish, sharing user insights and design ideas.
This teamwork helped align design with business goals and user needs, improving the review platform.
To streamline the review submission flow, I worked on finding the right balance between letting writers be quick and making sure readers could easily understand the reviews. I looked at whether titles should be optional or auto-generated but still editable. This helped improve the experience for both writers and readers.
Usability test
Scenarios: Submit a review; Read reviews
Method: Maze
Participants: 11 internal users (diverse roles), planned external testing with real customers
Metrics: Task completion rate, Completion time
Results:
Submit review: 81.2% success
Read reviews: 88.9% success
To overcome the small test group, I ran an Attention Insight analysis to uncover what draws users’ eyes and improve clarity.
This led to a 38% boost in design clarity, making the interface easier to understand and use.
Final solution
Let’s take a look at the solution and see how I transformed an outdated and fragmented product review experience into a smoother, more intuitive one.
1
Building trust with a fresh review design
Thanks to this project, I made a new component "Text review box" for my team’s library, usable for both product and shop reviews.
2
Revamped review experience with consistent design
Integrating the new review box and aligning visuals with the brand boosts consistency and intuitiveness across platforms.
On desktop, reviews are now accessed via a side drawer with an overlay, offering a smoother browsing experience. This approach keeps users focused on the page while providing easy, non-intrusive access to reviews without losing their place.
3
Enhanced decision-making with similar product reviews
Users can make informed purchase decisions by viewing reviews of similar products, even if the product itself has no reviews yet.
4
Smarter and faster review publishing
Publishing a product review is now faster than ever—no need to enter a title. A smart, auto-generated title saves buyers time and makes it easier for others to scan reviews and make confident purchase decisions.
Impact
💰 By adding the review box to the library, it can be used for both product and shop reviews, saving time, effort, and costs for designers, developers, and ultimately benefiting the business
🛍 This enhances the shopping experience, making it faster, smoother, and more intuitive for users to make confident decisions.
Retrospective
Reflecting on my internship at Rakuten, this project became a pivotal learning experience that shaped my design approach.
Early usability tests highlighted limitations, pushing me to lean into curiosity and insist on higher data standards. Embracing AI (Attention Insight) became a personal step towards diving deep for confident design decisions.
Exploring how AI elevated design validation (with a 38% clarity boost) was genuinely exciting. It reinforced my belief in learning and being curious, seeing tech as a powerful partner to invent and simplify.