Role
Product Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline
May 2023 - August 2023
Tools
Figma
PROBLEM
Cornell students are always seeking ways to cut costs, especially when making purchases. However, as they move between housing each year, they often find themselves with more items than they can keep. Unfortunately, these still-useful goods are frequently discarded, contributing to waste and unnecessary expenses. This cycle not only strains students' budgets but also promotes unsustainable consumption practices that harm the environment.
SOLUTION
I designed RedUse, a mobile app to buy and sell secondhand items within the Cornell community. This product aims to facilitate an easy exchange process to help students to find affordable items, declutter their space, and fostering a more sustainable, interconnected college experience.
CONTEXT AND APPROACH
As this was an independent project, I began by clearly identifying the project's scope and timeline. To keep the project on track, I developed detailed plan with action items for each deliverable. I kept detailed research notes, ideated features, and designed the visual components for all prototypes. Most importantly, I incorporated user feedback throughout the process to continually refine and improve the prototype.
RESEARCHING
User Interviews
To understand how students currently feel about buying and selling secondhand, I interviewed four Cornell students of varying years and residences. My research objective was to identify their pain points, needs, and motivations in the following processes:
1. How do users deal with items they no longer want or use?
2. How do users currently buy secondhand items?
I created an affinity diagram where I grouped similar responses together. I noticed the following shared experiences and feelings from students:
1. Students feel exploited and frustrated by fees.
"[Existing secondhand marketplace apps] are taking money from both the buyer and seller- it's a lose-lose situation."
2. Concerns about scams creates hesitation in transactions.
"I'm always afraid of getting scammed or receiving something that's not what I paid for."
3. Students prefer peer transactions for the perceived safety and personal connection.
"I like knowing who the other person is... I'm not scared of Cornell students."
4. Disorganized listings create an overwhelming search experience.
"It's so hard to find what I need- it's like digging through the discarded laundry pile to find my lost sock."
User Personas
To better guide my design in empathizing with users, I synthesized the interview results into the following personas. To keep things clear, I created two personas, with a goal of either selling or buying.
REFINING DESIGN GOALS
Avoiding Scams and Empowering Users
A common concern was the security of in-app payment methods: “I don’t want my credit card info in a Cornell app.” Based on this feedback, I refined the app’s purpose to focus on arranging in-person transactions rather than functioning as a typical online shopping platform.
Competitive Analysis
To understand current approaches to exchanging secondhand items, I looked into existing reselling applications and peer-to-peer platforms.
Key Takeaways:
• Successful features to incorporate included in-app messaging and a user review system.
• The differing values draws different demographics. Facebook Marketplace aligns best with college students, but has limitations including 1) primarily reaching Facebook users and 2) lacking a clear seller review system.
• There is a lack of platforms catering specifically to college students and an absence of community-building aspects in most existing marketplaces.
By addressing the identified market gaps and incorporating the most effective features from existing platforms, I hope to develop a solution that better serves the campus community.
DESIGNING
Ideation
After brainstorming potential solutions and evaluating their feasibility, I matched the following key features with the goals I hoped to achieve:
EXPLORATIONS
Low-Fidelity Sketches
I sketched out wireframes to consolidate my ideas and flesh out visions for the app.
Mid-Fidelity Iterations
Home Page
I implemented the tabs and search on top. The tab design allows users to navigate between different sections of content with a simple horizontal swipe, creating a seamless browsing experience. Placing a search bar on the top also streamlines the searching process for users who open the app looking for a particular item.
Request Posts
I turned the post's interaction options (commenting, initiating one-on-one chats, and saving the post) into buttons. I chose the fourth iteration, which 1) uses thin borders to indicate interactive buttons, 2) labels "Start Chat" since new users would be unfamiliar with icon meanings and 3) emphasizes the start chat button by positioning it separately, as it's the most essential action to initiate transactions.
Listing Posts
I selected the vertically aligned listing layout because of its visual clarity and organized appearance. After this choice, I made several additional UI improvements:
1. Increased white space to give the design more visual breathing room.
2. Added a thin border around each post to maintain cohesion with other app components.
3. Darkened the image gradient to create greater visual contrast and ensure readability.
ADAPTING TO INPUT
The Testing Process
After creating mid-fidelity app prototypes, I presented them to potential users to gather feedback. Here's a brief overview of the process:
• I explained the session’s purpose and made sure users felt comfortable.
• I described the context, walked users through the scenario, and encouraged them to think aloud as they interacted with the app.
• I asked follow up questions to identify issues and possible solutions.
• Finally, I thanked the participants for their feedback.
Then, I revised my initial designs to address identified issues.
More Listing Information
Users wanted to gauge the popularity of an item through the number of likes on an item.
To assess seller reliability, they had to navigate to a seller’s profile for reviews, so I added seller ratings directly into the listing.
They expressed interest in knowing how fresh a listing was, so I added a timestamp.
Streamlined Chat Navigation
Users felt that finding specific conversations would be a pain point. Initially, I ideated two solutions: sorted chats and a search bar. After testing both, it became clear that users found the sorted chats confusing while the search was intuitive and familiar because of similarity to iMessages, so I decided to implement the search bar.
Improved Profile Hierarchy
Your profile
Other user's profile
I noticed users struggling to access functions like their likes, drafts, saved items, and follow other profiles, which were tucked away in dropdown menus or settings pages. To address this, I brought these frequently used features to the main profile page, making them immediately accessible.
Final Prototype
Onboarding
To simplify the user experience, I added an introduction that provides context to new users.
Searching for Items
A dedicated page for exploring items.
To allow users to quickly access their saved items, I placed a "Saved" button in the upper right.
Arranging Exchanges in Chat
Transaction confirmations are integrated in messages through a "Confirm" pop-up.
While not visible in this current prototype, I'd add a loading animation after users send a confirmation message. This provides visual feedback that the request has been received and is being processed. A future goal of mine is learning how to create loading animations, making prototypes even more realistic and user-friendly.
Navigating Your Profile
View your reviews, drafts, likes, and saved.
I implemented tabbed navigation within the Reviews and Saved sections, so users can efficiently toggle through organized categories.
THINKING AHEAD
Although the scope of this project is limited by its conceptual nature, I can’t help but think about what’s next.
Encouraging More Reviews
Right now, users can leave reviews in the chat tab after a transaction, but this doesn’t adequately engage all users. I considered the following solutions:
Of course, I'd need to conduct further research to determine the most effective approach.
Expanding the User Base
Like any marketplace app, having plenty of users is essential to keep an influx of listings and requests. To grow the RedUse community, I’d try enabling users to share listings outside the app, which would increase exposure and potentially draw in new users. Another approach I’d leverage is using social media marketing, particularly Instagram, to 1) raise awareness to sustainability and affordability concerns and 2) share positive experiences from real users, which would help establish the app’s relevance and credibility.
THINKING BACK
Reflections
This personal project has been an incredible learning experience. It taught me to break down large goals into actionable tasks, keep myself accountable, and juggle multiple roles of researching, designing, and organizing the development process.
While I found qualitative feedback insightful, in the future, I would gather quantitative data as well. Having users rate the app's usability or satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10 would provide concrete data for fine-tuning designs and understanding their impact. To measure the success of my design goals, I'd also use surveys to collect quantifiable metrics.
And despite its apparent obviousness, I'd add reminders about not sharing living locations for transactions, as it's easy to forget basic precautions in the excitement of a deal. A few strategic warnings would help ensure community safety.
This project has been an adventure— I've not only sharpened my Figma skills and empathic communication, but also gained a deeper appreciation for the 'why' behind user-centered design.
Thank you for joining me on this journey!
