Overview
I sat down with my client Rod, to discuss what was needed for the app. At first, he wasn’t sure what he needed, but after our conversation, we came up with the necessary business requirements that were needed for this app.
Here are my client’s needs for this app:
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Display and sell products with other individuals
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Ability to communicate with other community members
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Provide a website for people who love to socialize about any toy items, in order to connect
Role & Responsibility
UX Design, Visual Design, and Prototyping.
Over these past three weeks, I have been working closely with a client to develop an application device that brought his idea to life. As the sole designer for this project, I have been working on this project to create a solution for his app. I was able to gather information from his interview for what my client desires on this app. My client gave me a few suggestions of what he was leaning towards. His suggestions included an easy way of purchasing items, and a group chats to create the final prototype.
Deliverables
Empathy Map, Personas, Journey Map, User Stories and Flows, Sketches, Wireframes, Usability Testing & Analysis plus Prototype.
Tool
Figma
Background
Rod works at Amazon. In his free time, he loves to connect with other LEGO builders online such as Facebook communities. He is a toy collector that enjoys going to toy festivals.
Rod wants to create an app that simplifies the selling process of his Lego creations and connect with other builders and toy collectors. His main goal is to create a place where this community can chat with each other about lego creations or any type of toy figure
Target audience
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For the MVP, I focused on 18 to 50-year-old LEGO builder lovers interested in sharing their creations with fellow builders worldwide.
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People who like LEGO building and toy collectibles that they want to share their creations and sell them.
The Problem
There are very few sites where you can sell toy items or join a group with your same interests to connect with people worldwide. There isn’t an app out there that helps Lego builders connect with one another and sell their toy creations.
My client’s solution
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Easy way for Lego builders to share their creations with each other
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An easy way for Lego builders to sell their creations or any toy items
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Deliver an easy to use chat system for Lego builders to connect and network with one another
Discovery & Research
For this phase, I started out by interviewing Rod so I could gain a deeper understanding into the world of Lego building. I also begun researching similar apps such as: Poshmark and eBay.
Competitive Analysis
After talking to my client Rod, I wrote a competitive analysis about the client’s toy purchasing app and how it would be compared to other apps in the marketing industry. I detailed the strengths that the app can accomplish. The biggest weakness would be the risk of the design not being attractive enough to his consumers. The app opportunities for himself would be: starting a small business and selling his toys to plenty of prospective clients. The threats to the client would be: threats from scammers and shipping delays.
I looked at eBay and Poshmark and I compared the two applications how each of them have different features. Both of the websites have the similar features that allowing selling and purchasing allowing the purchase of unwanted items. Opportunities and threats were similar in what they wanted to accomplish in their own company. My conclusion was eBay and Poshmark are good places to shop and sell that you don’t want anymore.
How Might We
How might we is a chart that tells us the client's thoughts, likes and he wants in his toy purchasing app? I gathered information from his ideas and madethe How Might We chart flow to get ideas and brainstorm any ideas.
and Poshmark are good places to shop and sell that you don’t want anymore.
Thoughts
To make my app more attractive, I could put a music playlist so that people can have music playing alongside in the background. I want the app to be simple and easy to use. I want clients to easily answer questions such as:
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Where might we sell toy figures?
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Are we going to chat with other lego builders?
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How to add a friends to network with.
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How to provide giveaways on the app, so that other people can experience toy event activity every month.
Like
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Displaying his Lego figures.
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Sharing his thoughts and toy images to social media.
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Group page messenger to connect to other builders.
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Post pictures of toy creations or what they like to show people about toy collectibles.
Want
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Selling Legos the user has made.
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Chat features with other users.
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Private message to the owner or buyer.
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Have account page
TOP 4 HMW
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Making the app simple and easy to use
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Where can we sell toy figures?
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Chat features
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Posting the picture to get some feedback
Findings
I created a survey to find out more about people who collect toys. I discovered:
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That a lot of people want to donate their unwanted toy items online.
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Only a few people donate their unwanted toy items or sell them on eBay or Poshmark.
Overall my survey allowed me to see how many people or their family members used to play with Legos. I discovered many people who purchase Legos often buys them at the store. I asked them if they would ever collect any kinds of toys such as: sport trading cards, Beanie Babies, shoes, LEGO Bionicles, or Pressed Pennies. 60% of the participants said yes, and 5% said no.
Next I asked other people if they have ever bought any toys for their relatives as a gift. 86% of the participants said yes, and 13% said no. Few people from the survey tried buying item toys from eBay but had a rough time with the shipping process
Questions
Do you play Lego or play with anyone? ( Like kids, niece, nephew or friends)
60% they say Yes
33.3% They say No
Have you ever purchase Lego or any toy items at the store?
53.3 They say Yes
40 % They say No
What they collect?
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Sport cards
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Bottle caps
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Stamps
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Video games
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Pressed pennies
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Star Wars items
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Pokemon cards
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Shoes
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Nintendo games
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Lego
Have you ever collect something as a kids or still collect anything?
60% They said Yes
33.3% They said No
6.7% One person said Maybe
Have you purchased a toy for your relatives as a gift? Do you buy a toy for someone at the store? 86% They said Yes 13% They said No
Have you ever sell anything on eBay? 40% They said Yes 53% They said No
If you have to give away your old toys, What do you do with them? 40% Giving to a family member or a friend who has kids 13% Selling the items online (eBay, Facebook or Poshmark
Pain points of the use app
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Worrying about scammers, or lack of built-in safety systems to warn against scammers.
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Bad communication between buyers and sellers
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Networking with people on social media can be challenging
Problem Statement
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Rod, who loves to build LEGO figures, wants to find a way to share his creations with other people as he struggles to look for specific items that he needs.
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Rod has unwanted lego figures and toys that he wants to sell and make some extra money on the side.
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Rod likes connecting with figure builders or toy collectors on a Facebook community, but he can only talk about random items in a separate forum on a group chat.
Ideation
Doodle Sketch gave us the free spirit to sketch ideas and comments on what the app should have and propose how the app will work out.
Crazy 8 sketch is a sketching exercise to generate ideas rapidly without too much forethought. Critiquing and remixing happens afterward. The drawing was challenging for me by doing the crazy eight methods. It takes like 2 minutes in the clock to draw any ideas that pop out of my brain. It was challenging to think of any thought or ideas while drawing this app.
In the sketch design, the idea was simple creating wireframes how it would look like.
By creating a Journey Map, it tells us about the client and his trip to the store. At first, Rod didn't know what to build aside from creating his lego pieces. As a collector, he would collect unique items to keep in his collection. If there were toy items that look interesting to build, he would buy them and start making the original direction or different path. It depends on his brainstorming that day.
At first, I did not see any information for the modules to make personas at the beginning of this project. I wanted to practice how to create one. I made one persona for this assignment. Personas are the client’s profile to get to know him well and his goals for the app. It gave me an idea of the background of the person I am working with and what he does. As a UX Designer knowing personas is part of the design process of empathizing and defining who the user is and what he needs at the beginning of the design process.
User Stories
User Flows
Site Map
The hand-drawn paper prototype took me a long time to figure out how it works and present to my client, like role-playing how the app will perform with the user who will use the app. We need to know who will use this app and how it will work on hand from the design process.
Storyboarding,
I draw this how the client will use this app. This storyboard shows how the user will interact with the product.
Wireframes
When I began to create my digital wireframes, and I received feedback from my mentor. I had to change the dashboard page and purchase an item from wireframes because some pages got confusing to understand at first. From sketching the wireframes' ideas, we get to see what the client wants on his app. Display his toy figure's creations, purchasing items that someone will buy. Connect with others and comment on what they like about products or anything.
Usability testing
I asked a few people to help me with survey questions for an assignment. They have experience purchasing items online and joining a community group of any interest that they are interested in chatting about and their thoughts.
User testing: #1 From the User testing, at first, buttons don't work. Overall the tester says that purchasing an item for the check out was a successful process through testing the app out. Someone suggested putting a text box like (input) to show in the chatbox so users can contact the app's owner.
Some people thought it was confusing if they didn't have someone to explain where to look for items. One person said it needs color, but I told him it was a low fidelity project. Otherwise, user testing was fascinating to see with people's feedback.
Tasked Tested
Usability Testing #2
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4 Users say, "It looks nice, and the buttons work."
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At first, The user said he couldn't type on the blank form and clicking on the heart icon to save it as a favorite. I need to improve the add to cart button and explore the view items.
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Other test users say it needs color, needs a comment on the message page, and one message should have the direction to contact the seller in chat to get contact with the owner.
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Overall experience, I learned that a simple design is better and complicated. I like sketching and making wireframes. Afterward, I would like to change some of the design screen pages and color them.
Next Steps
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A client wants to have more items for sale to purchase them
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Sharing other people's ideas with others to see their comments
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It's great to communicate with people around the world who likes toy figures
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Visual Design
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High Fidelity prototype
What I learned
Here are the things I learned:
· Simple design is better than a complicated structure.
· I strongly prefer sketching and creating wireframes.
· Don’t overthink things.
· Try to stick to the plan, and not be in the mindset of adding small things.
Afterward, I would like to change some of the design screen pages. After this project, I will learn more about visual design through a high fidelity prototype coming next.