2. User surveys
I sent a survey to parents of young kids to see how do they engage in online thrifting and what is their experience with buying and selling toys online.
Seventeen parents responded and answered several multiple-choice questions.
Project overview: started as an individual class assignment in Interactive Design class at MATC.
The idea further developed independently- user research, design process, and prototyping were added. The project expanded and improved based on research findings.
If you have friends or family with children (maybe are a parent yourself), you might notice an excessive amount of toys filling many houses where kids live. Kids get bored with their old toys and quickly receive new ones.
It creates a massive amount of unused objects at home.
To makes things worse, plastic toys might be very hard or impossible to recycle.
I proposed to create a platform dedicated specifically to families with children that would make selling, buying or exchanging toys safer, easier, and more enjoyable.
The main goal would be to increase safety during the whole process of buying, selling, or exchanging toys.
I asked myself, how can I improve the experience of online thrifting for parents and caregivers? What factors are especially important when parents are buying or selling toys?
Objective: develop empathy for users
My research objective was to develop empathy for users
I compared the four well-known platforms that allow selling and buying used products and tried to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each of them.
-What features in those specific services could be prioritized by parents
-Importance of creating a detailed profile for a buyer and seller
-The importance of operating locally to avoid high selling fees
-Local listings are more successful than only-shipping options
I sent a survey to parents of young kids to see how do they engage in online thrifting and what is their experience with buying and selling toys online.
Seventeen parents responded and answered several multiple-choice questions.
-most parents use some kind of online buying/selling platform with Facebook marketplace being the most popular
-half of the users buy or sell items for their kids relatively regularly
-users like the idea of decluttering their house and are looking for good deals
-main concerns include safety while interacting with strangers and the low-quality of products offered by sellers.
After analyzing the survey results I interviewed five parents and asked them more in-depth questions about their online shopping habits, motivations, preferences, and dislikes.
I split data into themes to look for emerging patterns using digital sticky notes.
Finding #1: Users prefer using their phones for online thrifting/ Insight: a phone app would be the most desirable option for building a new platform
Finding #2: Users pay attention to online profiles and ratings/ Insight: people feel safer seeing who they interact with online, improving users' profiles can improve the overall experience.
Finding #3: Users' motivations to use thrifting services can be categorized as saving money, getting rid of things, buying responsibly/ Insights: thrifting services should accommodate all these needs by allowing users to search for good deals, easily sell their toys and do it in a way that's good for the environment.
Finding #4: Users like to look up garage sales online/ Insight: The platform should show garage sales that are happening in the users' neighborhoods.
I created two personas that would reflect some common needs of online thrifting service users- saving money and getting rid of unneeded toys. Additionally, some of the interviewees also wanted to buy toys for their kids in an eco-friendly way. I created a third persona- focusing on sustainability, having in mind this emerging trend.
I also built three user journey maps for my personas to understand how users interact with the most popular online thrifting services. My scope was to describe an end to end experience when it comes to buying, selling, and browsing. I wanted to identify pain points in user journeys and find out what are the opportunities for building a better experience for thrifting parents.
While building a sitemap I focused on screens, that address the main concern coming up in my research- improving the feeling of safety while interacting with other users.
The majority of the interviewees felt, that having more information about sellers/buyers would make them feel better about interacting with someone they don't know.
I started with sketching user flows and then moved on to designing low fidelity wireframes. I wanted to explore different ways of fitting elements on the screen. Finally, I started designing a user flow in Adobe XD.
While working on a user flow, focusing on buying a toy, I tried to explore different solutions.
First, I thought of a simple process of contacting the seller directly from the 'product view' screen.
Later, I considered one of the pain points- interacting with users that are not serious about buying a product.
I added a 'request' button. This small step in user flow could prevent users who are only casually browsing from contacting sellers. Additionally it would allow the seller checking user rating before exchanging any messages.
To address the main concern I designed a detailed user profile with a short bio, ratings, and comments.
Additionally, I mapped out a user flow that shows how a user can accomplish the task of setting up a meeting to purchase a toy.
Here I wanted to improve the experience for sellers and increase the feeling of safety.
I asked some of the users I previously interviewed to perform the task of buying a bike using an interactive prototype of the app.
The prototype would allow buying only one of the bikes so users were previously instructed which of the bikes to pick to complete the task.
Usability testings went well and people assessed the app interface as intuitive and easy to navigate.
Some of the users got stuck in the process while using the 'request' button.
One user didn't want to use it because she understood it as an 'online order'. Another user had a similar association and said: 'I didn't want to use it because I wasn't sure if I wanted to buy this bike, I wanted to see it in person first'.
To resolve this problem I changed the 'request' button to the 'request contact' button and repeated the usability test. After this alternation users found it easier to complete the task and didn't hesitate to use the 'request contact' button.
1. Designing multiple variations of the same screen helped me explore the best option for the flow. It also allowed me to notice what important features I've missed.
2. While conducting usability tests I realized some people felt more comfortable giving feedback not directly to me (if they had negative observations). I thought giving an option to write down some of the opinions and ask additional questions via text or email later could allow some people to be more honest.
