SAVE TIME | SAVE MONEY | SAVE SPACE
The Secondary Research helped me index the addressable market and understand the competitive landscape. At the same time, provided me a chance with an entry point to further explore the behaviour and mental models of my target users.
Find out challenges parents are currently having with kids’ merchandise
Gain a broad understanding of the used kids’ merchandise market
Find out how parents deal with used kids’ merchandise
Things that parents care about when shopping for their kids
1. Price
2. Material
3. Durability
4. Customer Service: return and refund policy
5. Convenience: the cleanliness
6. Variety of products
3 most common way to deal with spare or used kids' goods:
1. Sell and/or donate to other parents
2. Repurpose the function
3. Save for younger siblings
Most common challenges when shopping for kids:
1. Price are too high, considering to the usable time
2. Hard to find perfect size
3. Kids outgrow so fast
4. Shopping time is too tight
Sell, buy and swap gently used kids’ items are the most common practice. Therefore, I decide to learn more about the second-hand market for kids’ products and conducted a heuristic analysis.
2 brands allow online purchase and only 1 of them has the option to purchase from mobile app
Some possible improvements in UX design:
Lack of feedback
No error prevention
Consistency
Visibility of system status
Information Architecture
Based on the insights gathered in Secondary Research, I then decided to move forward with gently used kids' merchandise as it is the most acceptable and common solution for parents to save money. In addition, I'd like to know more about their concerns and inconvenience when trading second-hand products.
To understand more insights, I performed multiple research methods during Primary Research period, including Interviews, Affinity Map, Empathy Map and Personas. I tried to gain the real pain points that challenges them, so I can explore solutions accordingly.
Interview screener survey
Facebook: Parent group and survey group
Friends and referral
Age: 21-45
Parents
Capable of using simple digital products
Had online shopping experience
Phone conversation and note-taking
5 participants
I received a total number of 62 responses from the screener survey and then picked up 5 interviewees. Except the basic criteria list above, I also referred to the total number of children per household, average spending on kids’ items and children’s age gap for selection.
Interview questions contains 4 sections that serve different purpose:
1. Understand the factors to budget: what is the budget, how they distribute the budget and what are the reasons/factors for such distribution
2. Understand the shopping frequency and behaviours: when do they shop most frequently in the time of the day and how much time do they spend on online shopping
3. Understand expectation towards used products: their opinion towards second-hand products and what do they care in trading second-hand items for kids.
4. Understand their use of devices: what kind of device do they use for online shopping and why is that.
In addition to saving money, participants shows different levels of anxiety towards save shopping time and storage space.
I gathered all raw data, grouped it into clusters and looked for patterns. I found out that all parents shared the same demand for saving money, time and space, but it out of different reasons. With the difference in reasons, I categorized my users in two types:
A. Stay-at-home Parents
B. Working Parents.
Don't have a specific number for budget.
Don't shopping when feel spend above average.
Have specific budget for different categories of purchase.
Advance budget or spread the budget for next couple months.
Research products and deals; Shopping and travel to pick up; Check inventory.
Read reviews, check seller's credibility
Essentials, old or big toys, clothes need for next season and old clothes (doesn’t fit anymore).
Good deal and whatever baby needs.
Smaller amount of essentials and old clothes (doesn’t fit anymore).
Baby needs, products that save time for work, usage time and resale value.
Persona answers my questions of “Who are my user ?” and "Who am I designing for?"More importantly, it helps me to stay focus along the design journey.
Rachel is a stay home mom who has two kids and currently contributes all her time to take care of the babies and the family. She cares about safety and quality the most when shop for kids, She will do rounds of research before conducting purchase. She claimed that she doesn’t have specific budget, however, she would estimate the total cost of recent purchase before making decisions. She will stock up essentials like diaper, formula and clothes for kids, but sometimes will forget to replenish.
Budget control: defer shopping
Time management: research and check inventory
Space management: constant check
Family happiness
Fear
Achievement
Lara is a working mom who just had her first baby. Lara sets budget for kids’ products which is distributed as 60% for essentials and 30% for toys and costumes. She will think about her inventory and storage space when she tries to do new purchase. She will advance her budget from next month if she finds very good deal. She doesn’t have too much time to research on kid’s item, recommendation from friends and reviews/ratings under the product are her main information sources. Lara will consider price, quality, usage and resell value when purchase new items for her kids.
Budget control: advance budget
Time management: review recommendations, check seller's credibility and purchase products to save time alternatively
Space management: causal check
Time saving
Incentive
Family happiness
What users say and what they really feel can be different and sometimes even themselves don’t realize that. To find out more insights and get to know the difference in their expression and thinking, I created the Empathy Map and here’s what I find.
When dive more to their claims, it seems that Money and Time are two primary concerns that my users are struggling from. Therefore, I created HMW Statement based on the two aspects.
How might we reduce the cost of shopping for kids?
How might we help parents save time shopping for kids?
How might we help confirm the credibility of sellers?
How might we ease the concerns towards the quality, condition and cleanliness of used items?
How might we help parents manage time for replenishment?
How might we help parents find stock availablity status?
Purchase with confidence
Sell in a time-saving way
Exchange information with other parents
Clearly know my inventory
With keeping my MVPs in mind, I started my design process firstly with the Sitemap.
During the interview, I learnt that users tend to use mobile app for shopping, so I decided to move forward my design with Mobile App. While designing the sitemap, I outlined the hierarchy of the app, which provides me with a better idea of how I want to layout the service to fulfill the help my user.
Created a Low-Fidelity sketch in Marvel and conducted the first round of usability test with 5 participants before moving on to the Mid-Fidelity Wireframes.
I wanted the primary color to reflect that it is a playful platform for kids, therefore, I chose the YELLOW at the beginning. In addition, I wanted to earn trust from parents, where andcome along.
Also, adding different degrees of greys to create dynamic and to demonstrate various layers.
I wanted the typeface to be elegant, chic but not too edgy. More importantly, I wanted it to be versatile and accessible over devices.
Heading 1
Heading 2
Body 1
Body 2
Button Text
Facebook: Parents group and survey group
Friends and referral
4 Interviewees
4 Remote interview via Zoom
1 In-person Interview
Facebook: Parents group and survey group
Friends and referral
Previous interviewees
All participants have difficulty selling products.
Changing the "Sell" icon.
Change the location of the sell function to the lower navigation bar to align with other primary functions.
Add additional sell function in the “Sell” under “My History” page.
Wording and information architecture. Participants found it difficult to connect “Plan” and “Inventory”, especially the task asking them to “add a newly purchased item to their inventory”. Also, the word “Post” might mixed up with the function “post to sell”.
Change “Plan” to “Inventory”.
Change “Post” to “Community”, while change “Post to Sell” to “Sell to Community”.
Potentially, I could add the function to access the inventory by clicking the “calendar”.
None of the participants clicked “Seller Info” to check the credibility of the seller at their first try.
Change the color and design of both “Ask Seller ” and “Seller Info”, especially the “Seller Info” icon, which is similar to the “Account” icon.
One of the participants has difficulty associate “Post” to the task “ask a question”. She sees the “Post” function more like a way of sharing life and sharing photos.
Add the field for adding product links in the post form.
Change the content demonstrated in the “Post”, add tags for questions.
Participants would like to add price and place where they purchase the product from in the inventory information.
Add “Price” and “Source of Purchase” in the “Add New Item” and “Edit My Inventory” forms.
Facebook: Parents group and survey group
Friends and referral
5 Interviewees
3 Remote interview via Zoom
1 In-person Interview
Test the Sign-up process, social feed posting as well as the three fundamental functions of the Mobile App: sell and purchase gently used kids’ products and manage inventory after iteration.
For the “Post” page, participants feel it’s more a social feed to share photos, but not a place looking for answers.
Switch to a forum layout for the question posts.
None of the participants clicked “Seller Info” to check the credibility of the seller at their first try.
Change the color and design of both “Ask Seller ” and “Seller Info”, especially the “Seller Info” icon, which is similar to the “Account” icon.
Participants missed to check “Seller Info” on the product page.
Possibly change the layout of the product picture section and enable the “Seller Info” and “Ask Seller” function in it.
Sketch
Wireframe
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
Final
Sketch
Wireframe
Version 1
Version 2
Final
When working on the project, I always try to remain myself to put users' needs in priority and every step I made were reflections for better user experience.
My users told me that they tend to shop in a short piece of time between their busy schedules, so they would mostly shop on mobile device, therefore, I decided to move forward with my idea with mobile APP.
My initial idea did not include time and space management, but later in my research, it showed that time and space management are equally important as budget control. In addition, those three factors interact and restrict each other. For example, if parents would like to save budget by purchasing used items, it would require them more time to do the research; If they’d like to purchase wholesale to lower the price, they would need more space to stock up. After revealing the fact, I decided to multi-functionalize the product to help them manage time and space at the same time.
The whole UI design intends to build trust while having a playful atmosphere. Therefore, I chose blue to establish the feeling of trust while applying yellow to highlight the cuteness.
During the process of building the product, the techniques really helped me to reveal the real user needs in layers. Furthermore with adapting changing requirements motivates me to tailor the product closer to user expectations.
Contact seller for direct communication
Purchase gently used kids' products
Check Seller's credibility
Search wanted items
Record inventories
Reminder for low inventories
Plan next purchase
Ask questions in social feed
Browse posts for reviews and recommendations
Sell gently used kids' products with options to the platform or to all users on the platform
Track selling history
Responsive Website
Utilize the cart summary page for Residential service, enable the ability for upsell and cross-sell.
Website / iOS / Android
Enable sending and requesting e-Transfers via SMS. Adding new features to existing flows.
IOS & Android APP, Website
Utilize to help users understand the membership benefits and boost sales.
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