COVID-19 Has Changed Your Users

The spread of the new coronavirus is dramatically changing people’s lives across the globe and this in turn changes how they use your product. There are few — if any — industries that haven’t been impacted in some way. Your users’ preferences and behaviors have likely shifted, and may be very different now than they were in 2019.

Exactly how people’s daily lives and routines have changed depends on the individual, their job role, living situation, and location, but consider some of the common shifts in the table below.

The causes of these differences can be hugely complex, due to the virus itself, but also the economic and political consequences of the virus’s spread. The magnitude and exact nature of the changes can depend on geographic location and on the individual. Each behavior shift may be a short-term change or may have massive, long-term consequences for related industries. 

Take the new interest in online shopping for example: UBS estimates that ecommerce will make up 25% of retail sales over the next five years, compared to 15% in 2019. The Financial Times reports that 60% of retail in China will be ecommerce in the next three years. If you’re in ecommerce, that’s a huge influx of potential new customers, potentially with different user needs.

There are also substantial preference and psychological shifts occurring. Experts worry that the pandemic has led to increases in depression and anxiety. People have different expectations and concerns than they had in 2019, and some of those differences may be lasting.

Case Study: Despegar, Online Travel Agency in Latin America

Despegar is the leading online travel company in Latin America, known by its two brands: Despegar, the global brand with headquarters in Buenos Aires; and Decolar, the Brazilian brand with headquarters in São Paulo. Its site is available in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. 

I spoke with two members of the UX team at Despegar: Emilia Ronchetti (UX lead) and Guido Turdera (user-research lead). The travel industry is one of the most substantially impacted industries during the pandemic. 

Emilia commented on the wild uncertainty in the travel industry: “We have no idea what’s going on,” she said. But Despegar has been ramping up research to try to figure it out. “[Our research] is the best thing that’s happened. It’s been helpful for the company to understand […] what people are feeling.”

Despegar’s research team has focused primarily on self-reported data in surveys and interviews. By better understanding new customers’ concerns and preferences, Despegar has been able shape its product to address them. 

(Despegar’s research team published its findings, in Spanish.)

Despegar has started emphasizing new features and services to meet those new needs. For example, flexible travel packages have been the most popular option since the pandemic began — even though they’re more expensive. “Before the pandemic, we didn’t see these kind of features as being very important,” said Guido. “Those features, today, are our core products.”

We Need More Research Now, Not Less

For many products and services, user needs are shifting rapidly. Lots of teams have decided to hold off on doing previously planned research projects, but I believe this is a time for more research, not less. User research is a form of risk reduction, and the greater the risk (for example, because of rapid change), the more you need that risk reduced.

Each user group is unique, and that’s why everyone needs to do their own research. Depending on who is your user populations, their behavior and preference changes may be different from another user population. 

When assessing COVID-19’s impact on your users, consider whether there are:

• Behavioral shifts
• Psychological shifts
• Changes in user groups
• Regional effects
• Temporal effects

Each of these is discussed below, along with examples from Despegar.

Behavioral Shifts

Are users doing different activities than they used to? Has the frequency of any activities changed? The underlying motivations of these behavior changes could be due to:

• A desire to avoid catching or spreading the virus
• Compliance with local regulations or quarantines
• Economic consequences of the virus or quarantine
• Some combination of these, or other factors

In his research, Guido encountered some Despegar users who reported that they wanted to travel and were allowed to within their home country’s restrictions, yet were not booking travel because their future incomes were uncertain. 

Psychological Shifts

Are your users’ concerns and anxieties different now? Have their priorities changed?

Guido’s research has shown that sensitivity is now much more important in communicating with their users. Emilia’s team is working towards a softer brand voice. They’ve realized that their customers don’t want to see high-pressure sales tactics right now, particularly in the context of travel.

“Some stakeholders had different expectations, they felt the need to sell,” Emilia said. “But most people right now are not confident about traveling. We’re figuring out how to make people feel safe. We’ve found a way to be transparent and honest with people, but still reassure them.”

Changes in User Groups

Have factors like risk tolerance, age, life stage, or living situations created new rifts in user behavior? You may need to revisit and redefine your company’s personas.

Despegar’s research has discovered new splits in its user groups — risk-averse vs. risk-tolerant travelers. Each group may have different needs and preferences, and Despegar is learning how to design for them.

Emilia’s team writes guidelines for the content generated by suppliers such as hotel chains providing photos of their hotel amenities. The hotels started submitting photos that strongly emphasized disinfection and wearing masks. 

Emilia and Guido’s teams were concerned about how their users would respond. They ran an experiment comparing normal amenity photos vs. photos that emphasized sanitation. Their results were confusing — some respondents commented that the sanitary photos made them feel safe and some said it made them uncomfortable. This split is likely related to each individual’s risk tolerance and perspective on the pandemic.

However, the team discovered a compromise by deeply analyzing the data. “We found out that more intimate photos — like, photos of your room or your food — were more likely to provoke an adverse reaction,” Emilia said, “compared to photos of large communal spaces like a lobby. The more intimate the space, the less people wanted to be reminded of COVID. But in a lobby, people were more receptive of seeing someone dressed like a Ghostbuster disinfecting the walls.”

Regional Effects

The severity of the changes may depend on each region’s rate of infections, how the local government is responding, and what restrictions are in place.

One of Despegar’s biggest challenges right now stems from the fact that they serve many countries across Latin America. Different areas have different amounts of virus spread, as well as different political responses to the pandemic.

“The politics and culture are an important factor,” said Emilia. She added that Brazil’s leaders have downplayed the risk of coronavirus, while Argentina has taken its quarantine very seriously.

“In our interviews and surveys, we found different approaches to travel post coronavirus in each country,” said Guido. “Brazilians and Mexicans reported traveling as early as May. It’s quite different — what you hear when you speak to a Brazilian compared to an Argentinian. That’s a big challenge, because we offer the same product for both populations.”

Temporal Effects

How long will each of these shifts last? Will they end suddenly, fade out gradually, or be permanent?

It may be difficult to find a firm answer to these questions, especially since we currently don’t know how, if, or when the coronavirus will become less of a disruptive influence in our lives. (And again, depending on where you live, that amount of disruption will vary.)

Possibly, some behaviors and preferences will fade out in the long run, but some will be permanent. Answering this question will require continuing user research over the coming months and years. (And no, you can’t ask people, “How will you behave in two years if a vaccine is available?” People simply aren’t good at predicting what they’ll do or think in the future. But you can make the plans to do more research in the future and find out then.)

Despegar has already seen changes in its users over the past five months. Some are ready for international travel, but many continue to be hesitant about leaving their own country. Some might still be anxious about how sanitary planes and hotels will be. It’s unclear how long those behaviors and preferences will stick around.

Change Your Research to Fit the New Reality

Qualitative research will be invaluable for uncovering deep insights about new user behaviors and preferences, particularly self-reported methods like interviews and surveys. Consider approaching your pandemic research as a discovery — your focus should be on understanding how and why your users have changed.

If your team uses benchmarking to track improvements to your user experience over time, be aware that the pandemic might disrupt or invalidate your metrics. When comparing a new design to an old design, you (ideally) isolate variables as much as possible, so that the design is the independent variable. Depending on your context, you may be dealing with a very different user population now than you had before — that’s a big confounding variable. Analytics data will be particularly impacted, since it captures real-life activity.  

Be aware of these hidden factors when interpreting your data. The changes you see in your metrics may not be completely due to your design decisions. Combine your quantitative data with qualitative research to understand why your metrics might be changing. 

Depending on where your research will be conducted, it may be more or less possible to conduct an in-person study. If you do plan in-person research, find out what regulations and standards you’ll need to comply with in your area.

The safest way to conduct research right now is to do it remotely. You’ll likely have an easier time convincing your users to participate in a study from home, and you won’t risk anyone’s health. With the exception of, perhaps, field studies, every research method can be done remotely. With careful advance planning you can get the same quality and depth of insights as from in-person research.

When recruiting participants, be sensitive to their emotional state. You don’t want to come off as greedy, pushy, or callous. You may need to radically change how you find your participants. 

For example, Despegar used to recruit participants from lists of people who had previously booked travel with them. However, the researchers realized that someone who had previously purchased a trip might be stressed and trying to cancel it, so possibly unlikely to participate in a study. “It wasn’t ok for us to go ask them how they’re feeling and when they’ll travel,” said Emilia. The research team got creative and looked for heavy travelers on social media and in social groups. 

COVID-19 Challenges Can Also Be UX Opportunities

As UX professionals, we suddenly find ourselves facing a hugely complex web of interconnected new influences on user behavior. This pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe of global proportions, but it’s also providing opportunities for some UX teams to improve the lives of their users in ways that weren’t possible before. 

For example, one person working in Canadian local government told me that UX was receiving a huge amount of attention and resources due the pandemic. The digital tools had previously been an afterthought and nobody cared much about them. But now, the local government has a huge motivation to help people complete their tasks online, to prevent them from coming into physical offices. Suddenly, the ease of use for those digital products became very, very important — possibly life-saving.

User needs are changing quickly and we must keep up. The companies that are the most flexible and resilient will be the ones that survive — and that starts with good research.

Despegar Team Members

Emilia and Guido requested that we include the names of their colleagues who have worked on the projects described in this article. UX is a team sport, so of course we agreed!

• Maximiliano Simoncelli
• Melina Astrella
• Natalia Bohdan
• Jean Paul Gutierrez
• Sebastián G Botasi
• Carolina Rivera Gomez
• Mariana Varela
• Melody Cortina
• Adriana De Souza
• Federico Trevisan
• Iara Grinspun
• Silvio Vitullo
• Julian Saidman
• Esteban Coria