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With the current competitive real estate market, users often find themselves stressed and discontent when making life-changing decisions. A lot of research and decision-making go into the moving process, especially during the “before” phase, when you are still deciding what area to move to.
It can be difficult to compile all the information you’d consider when looking for a new place--safety, cost, compatibility, etc. Users typically conduct intensive research on several areas until they find the perfect match and the effort tends to become stressful when it’s under pressure of a competitive market.
Users find it challenging and stressful to move to a new place to live if they aren’t prepared with useful information about an area which leads them to become unmotivated.
After establishing the issue at hand, I began putting together a research plan to help me define specific goals for user interviews.
I wanted to learn:
Who we talked to:
After analyzing the business' data and determining their core problem in retaining their customer base, I took in a full assessment of what we currently have as their active website, in order to highlight where we should focus most of the redesign.
In part of understanding the data is connecting with previous users to gain insight on real user opinion of the current website, as well as to understand their mindset when shopping online. I talked to 3 participants who have previously shopped with REVERE THE BRAND in attempt to learn what does or doesn't work for them with the current website, and determine what makes an enjoyable and effective online shopping experience.
Next, I conducted a survey of 25 people to gain a broader understanding of the level of interest in Spotify's social feature, and to gain insight into their opinions on the platform and the potential for music sharing to enhance social connections.
My interview research led me to conclude my users fall into the following 2 categories:
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Shopping guides being too broad or vague can make the gift shopping process overwhelming, adding on stress and deter users from finding anything truly potential.
If it's curated or personalized, it helps users feel like they have their own personal shopping assistant, someone who is specially there to help only them.
A huge online marketplace like Amazon can be hectic, but is actually user-friendly due to its intuitive UX design and layout.
These websites feature strong call-to-action buttons on their landing page to immediately captivate users.
All of the websites have effective categorization to sort their products which makes for easy navigation.
All stores utilize a neutral black/white color palette and allow the vibrancy of their images to set the tone of their brand and also serve as main selling points.
Next, an affinity map was created to organize and synthesize the data collected from user research, primarily from user interviews. It helped in gathering common themes surrounding motivations, pain points, and needs, which will essentially create the ideal user persona for this product.
Need #1: Users need to get a gift in time to prevent feeling stressed.
Need #2: Users need a way to discover ideal gifts.
Need #3: Users need a form of guidance to know what to shop for others.
To understand the market and user behavior, I looked at competitor companies and products and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses to see potential market gaps. This served as the foundations of future ideation for features.
I found that while these services provided users with information useful to the searching process, their targeted user group was either too broad or too specific. Most of these products provide resourceful features, but are designed to serve a specific task or user; they did not focus distinctly on delivering information to a general user who is looking to move to a new place.
My assumptions were confirmed when I created a features list and noted each product’s specialty, thus concluding that there is not a product that is an “all-in-one” provider for the general user who is looking to move.
I used my HMW questions as a starting point to ideate multiple solutions, which I then prioritized based on insights gathered from user research.
Before I determine my full set of features, I took a step back to get a clear overview of what my goals are, in terms of user, business, and technical, as well as any common goals in between. Understanding clear goals will aid in making the best decisions when it comes to prioritization later on.
With my personas in mind, I brainstormed key features that would serve their needs.
Based on my research, I determined that users who are looking to move might benefit from the following features:
Following my ideation of key features, I organized a card sorting study that was completed by a total of 4 participants. From this study, I wanted to learn how users categorize information and topics as well as to understand their mental models.
My analysis of the card sorting helped with the development of the sitemap that would outline and expand on my core features and topics.
After establishing my core features, I developed 3 task flows to demonstrate the navigation and determine key screens to wireframe.
With my persona in mind, I brainstormed key features that would serve their needs.
Based on my research, I believe that the following features would have an effect on retaining customers and creating an enjoyable online shopping experience:
I began sketching low-fidelity wireframes as a rough draft to form the structure of my product based on the created task flows. This invited early feedback before I begin creating mid-fidelity wireframes. I wanted the layout of the screens to be very intuitive and easy to navigate for users. I brought my vision closer to life by adapting the sketches into digitized wireframes with clearer structure, features, and content.
The visual direction I went for was to be growth-driven, calming, and reliable. I chose the name ‘Homeful,’ because it's a mix of the words ‘home’ and ‘hopeful’ in which I hope users can be hopeful they will be find their perfect home through our help.
Now in the final stretch, I started combining my wireframes with my visual UI and thus creating an initial high-fidelity mockup of the key screens for Homeful. This version would serve as my initial prototype for usability testing.
With my foundations set up through wireframes and visual branding, I can now begin piecing everything together by updating the brand's content and playing with the UI elements. With this, I produced high-fidelity frames for my initial prototype for responsive devices through Figma.
For my usability testing rounds, I conducted 5 user tests on my prototype. In each test, I asked participants to complete 3 main tasks.
Results showed that all participants were able to complete all 3 tasks successfully and easily.
Participants mentioned the visual appearance and aesthetics of the product stood out the most and it was very eye-pleasing.
Participants were satisfied with the ease of use of the product, including the features and content provided.
However, there were 3 areas suggested for improvement:
On the home feed, I rephrased 'Upcoming Events' to 'A little reminder ⌛️' to express how quickly events are approaching; added how many number of days are away, to prevent any date confusion; and pushed content higher up to highlight its value.
Replaced Saved Gifts with quicker access to curated "Gifty Guides" so users can begin exploring potential gifts and provided context into what "Gifty Guides" meant.
Reframed the original content to create space for saved items so users will always be reminded of gift options whenever they visit a Friend's Profile.
Rephrased 'lists' as 'collections' to mitigate confusion and transitioned the save function to a vertical format. This change was aimed at optimizing user-friendliness, allowing for improved content viewing and the ability to save to multiple options.
Explore a new social presence called Spotify Circle where users can share music, see what friends are listening to, and interact with friends to engage in a whole new music-bonding experience.
Check out a friend's shared music activity on their user profile, along with discovering your music taste compatibility with them.
With this feature, you can effortlessly utilize Spotify's existing Blend feature and create a mix that fits both of your tastes.
Spotify Circle will also introduce two new playlists, allowing for users to discover music outside of their preferred genre as well as learn what friends are listening to through the convenience of a playlist.
Send song recommendations to friends directly within the Spotify app to make music sharing easier and faster than before.
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Sign up and complete your profile by adding your information and hobbies or interests to customize your own curated guide and begin discovering gifts, even for yourself.
Event reminders are a top priority so you will never miss a chance to get a gift for an important date. Let it lead you to the friend's profile so you can begin shopping for them or pick up where you left off.
Add a friend into GIFTY by inputting their information (as with your own profile) to begin exploring numerous gift options that were curated just for them. And saving it to buy later is as easy as a single tap.
Like what you found while browsing? Save it to a collection you made or a friend you think it'd be perfect for. All within one action.
For my first design project, I would say I am extremely proud of the final product. If this were to become a real product, I hope it can deliver extensive data to users who will utilize it in their decision-making and improve their confidence.
Overall, I learned valuable lessons about the design process and tested my abilities when it comes to challenges I never thought I could do. There's always more to learn and I can't wait to expand my skill sets from this point on!
