Baymard: 2022 and 2023

With the end of 2022 nearing, here’s an overview of everything we’ve been working on, as well as what we have planned for 2023:

• Baymard’s 10 most popular UX research articles in 2022
• The 5 new UX research studies added in 2022: Travel Accommodations, Groceries, Consumables Subscription Services, Meal Kits Subscriptions, and Takeout & Food Delivery
• 10 new UX benchmarks added
• 10 new team members & hiring
• What new UX research we have planned for 2023

10 Most Popular Articles in 2022

The 10 most popular articles were the following:

• Online Grocery UX: 5 High-Level UX Takeaways from 1,100 Hours of Testing Leading Grocery Websites
• Readability: The Optimal Line Length
• Accounts & Self-Service UX: Consider Having an “Icon-Based” Dashboard (81% Don’t)
• The Current State of Checkout UX - 18 Common Pitfalls & Best Practices
• Direct-to-Consumer UX Benchmark: 5 Common DTC Pitfalls
• DTC E-Commerce: User Reviews Are Much Less Important for DTC Sites
• Format the ‘Expiration Date’ Fields Exactly the Same as the Physical Credit Card (90% Get It Wrong)
• 4 Design Patterns That Violate “Back” Button UX Expectations – 59% of Sites Get It Wrong
• Form Usability: Getting ‘Address Line 2’ Right
• Provide “Quick Views” for Visually Driven Products (50% Don’t)

New UX Research Studies Published in 2022

In 2022 we’ve conducted and published 20,000 hours of new UX research. The 5 most significant UX research studies added during 2022 included the following:

1) New “Travel Accommodations” Research Study

This research focuses on “Travel Accommodations” websites and included test sites from Online Travel Agencies (Booking.com, Expedia and Trip.com), Large-Brand Hotel Chains (Best Western, IHG, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Shangri-La), Small Boutique Hotels (The Artezen Hotel, EsmeHotel.com, NobleDEN Hotel, The Nolitan Hotel, Prince Akatoki London, Sixty LES Hotel, and The Sohotel), and Whole Property Rentals (Airbnb, Kid & Coe, Plum Guide, Sonder, TurnKey, and Vrbo).

See the findings from our Travel Accommodations research study or explore our travel UXarticles:

• Travel Accommodations UX: 3 High-Level UX Takeaways from 992 Hours of Testing Leading Travel Accommodations Sites
• Make the Travel Accommodations “Booking” Search Feature the Primary Content on the Homepage (25% Don’t),
• The Optimal Layout for Hotel & Property Rental Search Results & 3 Pitfalls to Avoid,
• New UX Benchmark for Travel Accommodations Websites (OTAs, Hotels, Vacation Rentals)

2) New “Groceries” Research Study

This research includes test sites from online e-commerce Grocery websites and includes test sites from individual grocery store sites and apps (Amazon Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Aldi, FreshDirect, Albertsons, Sainsbury, Ocado, and Peapod) and aggregate third-party grocery delivery sites and apps (Instacart and Shipt).

See the findings from our Online Grocery research study or explore our articles:

• 12 Common UX Pitfalls ‘Online Grocery’ E-Commerce Sites Suffer From
• Grocery and Food Delivery Site UX: Allow Users to Add “Past Purchases” to the Cart from the Homepage
• Online Grocery UX: 5 High-Level UX Takeaways from 1,100 Hours of Testing Leading Grocery Websites
• New Industry UX Benchmarks for Luxury, Telco, and Grocery
• Online Grocery UX: 3 Ways to Make Setting Grocery Substitution Preferences Easier

3) New “Consumables Subscription Services” Research Study

This research includes test sites from “Consumables Subscription Services” websites offering product subscriptions (Rent the Runway, Dollar Shave Club, Birchbox, Book of the Month, BarkBox, Bespoke Post, and KiwiCo) and Grocery & Food Box Subscriptions (Imperfect Foods, Hungryroot, Farm To People, ButcherBox, Crowd Cow, Oceanbox, and Sea to Table).

See the findings from our Consumables Subscription Services research study or explore our articles:

• 3 UX Best Practices for Consumables Subscription Services Websites — Based on 1,200+ Hours of UX Testing
• Consumables Subscription Service Sites: New UX Benchmark with over 3,000 Performance Scores and 2,300 Best Practice Examples
• Consumables Subscription Services Site UX: Avoid This Major CTA Pitfall
• Use a 3-Level Information Hierarchy for the “How It Works” Page for Consumables Subscription-Service Sites

4) New “Meal Kits Subscriptions” Research Study

This research includes test sites from “Meal Kit” websites including Able & Cole, Blue Apron, Dinnerly, Gobble, Gousto, Green Chef, HelloFresh, Home Chef, Marley Spoon, Purple Carrot, and Sunbasket.

See the findings from our Meal Kits research study or explore our articles:

• 3 High-Level UX Takeaways from 950+ Hours of Testing Leading Meal Kits Sites.
• Meal Kit Sites: New UX Benchmark with over 3,300 Performance Scores and 2,200 Best Practice Examples

5) New “Takeout and Food Delivery” Research Study

This research includes test sites from restaurant-to-consumer food delivery (Starbucks, Chipotle, KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Domino’s, and Panera Bread) and platform-to-consumer food delivery (Doordash, Uber Eats, Just Eat, and Deliveroo).

See the findings from our Online Food Delivery research study or explore our articles:

• 3 High-Level UX Takeaways from 1100+ Hours of Testing Leading Food Delivery and Takeout Sites
• New UX Benchmark for Takeout & Food Delivery Mobile Sites and Mobile Apps
• Grocery and Food Delivery Site UX: Allow Users to Add “Past Purchases” to the Cart from the Homepage.

10 New UX Benchmarks Published in 2022

In 2022 we also conducted 10 new UX benchmarks, adding 39,000+ new best-practice and worst-practice examples illustrating how leading sites stack up against the 650+ UX guidelines available in Baymard Premium.

You can browse parts of this dataset for free in our public E-Commerce UX Benchmark and in the Page Design tool.

You can see the 10 new UX benchmarks in detail here:

• Direct to Consumer
• Mobile Web
• Takeout and Food Delivery
• Travel and Accommodations
• Consumables Subscription Services
• Meal Kits
• European Sites
• Mobile Apps
• B2B: Medical and Pharma
• B2B: Electronic Components and Machinery

10 New Team Members and Hiring

In 2022 we welcomed 10 new colleagues to Baymard, all highly dedicated to the UX field — and we have more hiring plans for 2023.

If you want to join Baymard in 2023, then sign up for our job email alert to get notified when Baymard is hiring (max 4 emails per year).

First Half of 2023

Looking ahead to the first half of 2023, we’re

• Finalizing 2 new UX research projects in early 2023 on “Tours and Experience Bookings” and “Vitamins and Supplements”

• Overhauling our existing core UX research with new test data & findings: Homepage and Category Navigation, Product Lists and Filtering, Search, and Cart and Checkout

• Ramping up 3 new UX research studies planned for publication Q2–Q3 2023 on B2B: Electronics Components, Apparel & Accessories, and Housewares & Furniture

• New UX benchmarks on Homepage & Category UX, Product Lists & Filtering UX, Mobile Web Customer Accounts, ISP websites, Mobile Apps, Automotive Parts & Specialty, Home & Hardware, and Insurance.

Tip: You can see a full breakdown of all changes on our Roadmap & Changelog page, or subscribe to our Quarterly Newsletter to get 4 emails per year summarizing what new UX research we’ve released.

We’re looking forward to 2023.

Christian, Jamie, and the entire Baymard team