Drugstore Mascara, Product Reviews, And The Limits Of UX Design
ULTA optimizes my ability to analyze product reviews, but their design doesn’t fully address my needs.
This image is from BreakingPic via Pexels.
Usually, I fall in love with one mascara and buy it repeatedly, but last month I was craving something new. I wanted to go with a drugstore brand, like Cover Girl or Revlon, because they carry some cost-effective dupes for luxury products. However, not all drugstore mascaras are worth the hype so I sorted through sponsored content and trendy gimmicks to find something that was.
My quest for a cheap but effective mascara involved a thorough investigation of product reviews, which led to observations about the extent to which they can realistically meet my needs.
Why do I see value in product reviews?
When it comes to purchasing new makeup, I rely on customers’ narrative reviews to prevent me from wasting money on a product that isn’t worth it.
Before scouring product reviews on a vendor site like ulta.com, I searched for recommendations online. Keywords like “drugstore mascara” yielded dozens of results for buzzy products, along with reviews extolling the wonders and caveats.
When I checked Google, Youtube, or TikTok for inspiration, it was tricky to assess which products were popular due to savvy marketing and persuasive sponsored content and which were sincerely great mascaras. Sorting through product recommendation lists, such as this one from Vogue, made me wonder how much bias or brand deals impacted the content on the lists. Furthermore, beauty influencers are often on another level when it comes to buying and applying makeup. I didn’t have a drawer full of mascaras; I just wanted one to use exclusively. Plus, my makeup skills are rudimentary, so I need something foolproof.
Once I had some mascaras on my radar, it was time to hit up ULTA’s website to weed through product reviews. For me, these reviews had the most sway on my final decision. The narrative reviews, along with the star ratings, revealed on a larger scale how people felt about the product, in addition to spotlighting issues that were not surfaced in my initial research.
I put so much stock in these reviews because I feel less skeptical about the reviewer’s intent (though stories about people being paid to give 5-star reviews on Amazon remind me to keep my guard up). While I can’t guess the intention for each person, there’s not much of an incentive to lie and oversell a product when you’re writing a review. Thus, there’s a level of trust I feel with the product reviews that doesn’t exist in other contexts.
What’s so special about the UX of ULTA’s product reviews?
By displaying a summary of essential data points, ULTA’s product review design allows me to quickly understand the highlights and lowpoints of the reviews.
This screenshot of Product Reviews shows how ULTA summarizes key data points. While this design likely exists on other sites, ULTA is the first place I’ve encountered it.
When I waded through product reviews, my goal was to understand what specific aspects of the mascara people liked and disliked. Even if most people rated 4 stars and above, I wanted to know what bothered the 3-star-and-below reviewers, in case this was something that would also bother me.
On most websites, I’d achieve this goal by reading a handful of positive and negative reviews in search of patterns and persuasive details. However, ULTA summarized the product review data for me, so I could readily understand how 1,500+ customers felt about this product.
Here’s a walkthrough of how ULTA summarized the Product Review data, along with an analysis of its impact on me as a potential buyer.
% Recommend: I liked how this number is displayed at the top of the Product Reviews because it’s a compelling data point – people don’t recommend products that they disliked! However, I didn’t notice this detail immediately, and it could be larger or more strategically placed.
Ratings Distribution: I was interested to know how many customers disliked the product. In the screenshot, 80 people rated two stars and below, which is a low percentage of the total reviews, but still! If 80 people took issue with the mascara, that is useful information to me.
Pros / Cons: This was the most impactful section for me. Makeup is complex and subjective, and many factors could cause someone to love it or hate it. Seeing which details reviewers reacted to helped me assess if this product might be right for me. In this case, I was looking for lengthening mascara, so it was reassuring to see that 17 people noted “Lengthening” as one of the Pros.
Best Uses: Seeing how people used the product further supported my ability to evaluate if it was right for my lifestyle. There’s a difference between makeup that’s great for everyday use vs. one that’s best for formal events or complex looks that can only be achieved by a skilled artist. In this case, I liked seeing that 16 people say this mascara is good for “Anytime”, which is what I wanted the product for.
When it comes to product reviews, why can’t great UX fully address my needs?
Regardless of the design, reviews cannot predict with 100% certainty that I’ll get my money’s worth if I buy the product.
Beneath the quantitative data summary, ULTA juxtaposes the most helpful positive review with the most helpful critical review.
Despite ULTA’s noteworthy UX for their product reviews, this still left the issue that reviews nearly always contradict one another. Even though nay-sayers were in the minority for the mascara I was interested in, seeds of doubt were planted that despite the glowing reviews, this could be a waste of money for me personally. I tend to buy cheaper products, but money is money, and I’d be frustrated if it didn’t work out.
This point was perfectly distilled by a feature of ULTA’s Product Reviews that I didn’t yet cover. Beneath the quantitative data summary, they juxtapose the “most helpful” positive review and critical review. In the screenshot above, the positive review promised stunning lashes at a great price. However, the critical review warned that the wand was likely to break, rendering the product useless. These are both helpful stories, but it creates dissonance that was hard to resolve. Do I risk buying a product that might fall apart in a few weeks?
So the problem that I really want product reviews to solve is to ensure that I only buy products that are a total success. In an ideal world, I’d only purchase items that worked perfectly for my context and lifestyle. While this doesn’t seem like a problem that can be solved by advanced UX, I give ULTA credit for providing usable data that empowers me to readily process customer reviews. Though the reviews don’t serve as a crystal ball, I appreciate a format that makes my product research as efficient as it can be.
Epilogue
Despite feeling uncertain, I took the plunge and bought this mascara. If you open the link, jump to the product reviews, so you can evaluate the UX (and possibly see if you want to try the product!). After using this mascara exclusively for a month, I can report that it works well for me, and I’ll probably buy it again. But who knows if it will be right for you?