UXDI 1st PROJECT RETROSPECTIVE
Project Title: Thriftique
Why this project is relevant: This project fills a need new residents to a particular area have of easily locating nearby thrift shops and antiques shops. Currently, there is not an app that does both. Based on research I did, there are apps that help users locate thrift shops OR antiques shops, but not both.
Step 1: User Interview and Affinity Map — After speaking with my user, for approximately 15 minutes, I learned she has only been in town for a few days, desires to spend her money at local businesses/ mom and pop stores, prefers to buy used /vintage items to refurbish and make her own, has many collections of unique items, and enjoys bargain hunting for said unique items at thrift shops and antiques shops.
Problem Statement: User enjoys shopping at thrift stores and antiques stores, but does not know where her local shops are as she is new in town.
Reflection on Step 1: It felt rushed. I would have liked more time to sit with my user and make her feel comfortable so the problem would reveal itself more organically. I did conduct a second, 30 minute long interview with my user later on that day, in order to verify if I was on the right track with my problem statement. I learned that a longer interview is not necessary when conducting research, as a short interview will yield the same information; it just feels more forced.
Step 2: Sketch a Storyboard — I then sketched a storyboard showing a typical weekend day for my user. I wanted to show in a few short boxes her problems, and how it could be resolved.
In the upper left corner, Jessi (my user) is going to her car, ready for a fun day of bargain hunting. On the upper right are some representative examples of some typical thrift/antique items she might be on the lookout for. On the bottom left is Jessi looking sad that she doesn’t know where to start her search since she is new in town. On the bottom right, are some devices with an app that will solve her problem.
Reflection on Step 2: My storyboard was simple as I intended, but upon reflection, it might have been better to do a slightly longer story to involve the audience a bit more. Also, I’m not sure the final box is necessary.
Step 3: Project Planning — I wrote out a rough plan for my presentation slides. I was trying to keep the order logical so that it would flow easily during my presentation.
Reflection on Step 3: I ended up using less slides in my presentation than I originally planned for, and it must have been the right decision because I received feedback from others after the presentation on the clarity and conciseness of my work. I can’t shake the feeling my presentation should have been longer in length, but the audience is not wrong?
Step 4: Planning my App — I made some initial rough sketches, then polished them to reflect design conventions and to be a bit more user-friendly. I also came up with the name of my app: “Thriftique” by combining thrift + antique. I was aiming for a limited number of functions in my app in order not to overwhelm the user (or myself!).
Reflection on Step 4: I had a great time designing my app. I had fun researching other apps to see how they compared, and to get ideas on what worked. I enjoyed choosing the flow of the screens & deciding how I would position the content on each screen. This is definitely the part of the process I enjoyed the most.
Next Steps — This app could continue development and refinement in the following areas: helping connect users, adding a calendar so users could plan their trips, and including temporary store popups and special events, not just permanent storefronts.
What I learned: Overall, I would say this undertaking was a good experience. I learned that I would have acheived a better end result if I had user-tested my app more. Feedback from my user would have been most beneficial in shaping the overall design- both the look and feel of it.
I also learned more about myself — what particular areas of UX Design I excelled at, and which ones I had more trouble with. I also got a better idea of what direction my UX career will be taking.
