Design Thinking

I have noticed that the majority of my friends and family members are doing more online shopping these days- wether it be for food, clothes, or things they don’t really need. Zulily is a site that most of them love, even I have used it now and then. The website is set up in a way which is easy to use- you have different ways to search their products. You can use the search bar if you know what you want, shop by category (women, men, kids, home, etc), whats new, last minute items, and you can even chose to search by size. The flow of the website is nice and easy to use even for first time users.

One thing Zulily did really well with was making their app just as user friendly as the website.

One thing that I loved using while working in the restaurant was an app called wunderlist. We used this to make a list of any cleaning projects, list any thing we needed to get fixed or wanted to reorganize. Helping to keep us managers on the same page of what needed to be done was great, but the most helpful part was that we could check off something as we did it, sending a notification to the other manager that the task had been completed. It was something that was so helpful our regional manager now uses it in all of his restaurants (about 78 locations). I ended up using it with my friends and roommates- what movies we wanted to see or what we needed from the grocery store. While the main page is a little plain it is user friendly and a useful tool.

The last app that I think has a good design is Venmo. This app is used to transfer money to friends for any reason. It is easy to sign up and just as easy to use. The design is simple and effective, making it a go to app when you need to quickly transfer money.

Now on to the bad desgins.

Reddit just has too much going on as soon as you open the page. The font and size are too constant, there needs to be some way to break up the information. There is little to no spacing between the different posts, add that to the font size and color (lots of blue happening on this page)it looks like a blur of information. There is a navigational tool up top, but it is so small some people look over it. While it has improved over the past few years, tremendously so, it still needs some work.

This is the main screen for the noodles and company app. There is no log-in or sign up displayed right away. You have to go through two steps to do either one of those things. The design in very plain- a lot of white space going on. There are a lot of complaints from guests about the app not being user friendly. In reality once you get logged in or start a new order as a guest its not that hard to figure out, but the flow of the site is what makes guest chose the website over the app. While the app could use a make over and a better flow, their website is pretty good. They have a lot of pictures, the categories are more defined and the whole site flows- pick a dish, size, then protein. Now they just need to upgrade their app.

Giftster- while it is a great idea and gets the job done, the site and app are pretty plain and boring. It is a great way to create lists of things you want for any holiday or special occasion. Your list can be shared with family and friends and when one person gets it the other people will see a “taken” in small letters beside the “quantity” column. The person who created the list however will not know that the item has been purchased. It is a great idea and works pretty well, but there is not much going on in the design. And it is pretty easy to miss the “taken” tag- meaning some people may double order items when in a hurry or looking at this on a smaller screen.