CraftyThreads
Case Study, Prototyping, UX/UI Design
Mobile crochet app, designed to help crochet lovers everywhere find inspiration for their project needs.
Mobile crochet app, designed to help crochet lovers everywhere find inspiration for their project needs.
Client is looking for a crochet app where users have the ability to browse and find inspiration for their next projects. They want the users to be able to save their project details such as notes about yarn color and weight, or link to the store they bought it from and images, etc. and they want to ensure that users are able to do this offline as well and not always have to worry about the internet.
View Prototype
1) Users want to be able to find ideas and inspirations for their next project
2) Users want the ability to save their project progress
- Notes
- Images
- Links
3) Users want the ability to work on it offline
CraftyThreads allows users to find their next crochet project inspiration right from our mobile app! It provides users with the capability to search for a specific pattern, project type or even skill level. Users are able to save their project details, such as notes, images, links and they are able to do this all offline!
Next, I will discuss the design process I took to come up with the solutions.
Research Methods:
1. Competitive Analysis
2. User Survey
3. Consumer Interviews
For this project I looked at two competitor apps, Crochet and Knit Counter and Amigurumi Today. Analyzing these two apps gave me a great understanding of each of their strengths and weaknesses.
Crochet and Knit Counter:
Strengths: helps you keep track of rows and project progress, accessible for users of voice-over, work on multiple projects
Weaknesses: cannot look for project ideas or patterns, cannot find ideas or inspirations for next project
Amigurumi Today:
Strengths: lot of Amigurumi options, attractive hero images, ability to search for particular Amigurumi pattern, ability to filter by skill level
Weaknesses: only good for Amigurumi patterns, cannot save your project
Next, I conducted some user surveys and interviews to gain a better understanding of my users and their needs.
Sample Interview Questions:
1. How often do you crochet?
2. What features are you looking for in a crochet app?
3. What are your biggest frustrations with the current app, if you use any?
User Survey Results
I learned that crocheting is becoming quite a popular hobby, especially during this pandemic. According to the results, it was trailing right below drawing and painting.
Top 3 pain points of current apps:
1. Poor ideas and suggestions- 40%
2. Inability to save their work - 33.3%
3. Cannot find patterns for a project - 20%
Top 3 most requested features:
1. Ability to find ideas and inspirations - 82.4%
2. Ability to save images - 61.8%
3. Ability to save notes - 47.1%
User Interview Results
The interview results and survey results aligned pretty well, they all had similar pain points and were looking for similar features. In addition to what I gathered from the survey results, the interview participants also wanted the ability to search for patterns based on particular project types they had in mind and they also wanted the ability to have a community forum where they can share their projects or find inspiration from someone else and be able to follow their work.
Once that was completed, I moved on to creating target audience and user personas to fully understand what the users are looking for and how they currently feel. I also wanted to create a user story to see which tasks were considered the highest priority by the participants. This would allow me to stay focused on the most important features that users wanted to see in their crochet app to be happy.
The target audience we were looking at was females, between ages 25-65 with a median income of $40-90,000 located in the northeast US region. Some of the common interests included creating something by hand, gardening and cooking.
Age: 65
Occupation: Retired teacher
Motivation/Goals: Likes making personalized handmade gifts for family members
Not very tech savvy, so needs something simple
Likes to find holiday specific ideas
Frustrations: Hard to find ideas online, too complicated
Not sure where people bought certain yarns from, hard to find out
Age: 27
Occupation: Grad Student
Motivation/Goals: Looking for a place to save her current project progress
Currently writes them all down on notebooks and loses them
Wants to find new project ideas
Frustrations: Not being able to save her work on an app
Not being able to save images and notes
Hard to find color matches for her yarns
User Stories
The user stories align with the client requirements, where users want to be able to save their work and look for inspirations and search for particular project types. For a full list of the user stories, I have included a link below. But for the purpose of this project, we will only be looking at our high importance list.
For complete user stories, click the link below:
Full User Stories
Next, based on my research, user personas and user stories I began by creating a user flow/flowchart and building wireframes. I began the process by sketching out some ideas using pen and paper, then moved on to building a digital wireframe in Figma.
Usability Testing
I did the usability testing with 3 users and received similar feedback. They all said the app was simple and easy to use. They said it was easy to search for ideas and it was straight to the point and minimalistic. Some suggestions I received for improvements were in regards to the font. Users mentioned that it wasn’t very legible and also since they were all in black, it was hard for them to know if any of them were links.
Tasks asked of users to complete:
1. Assume that you’re interested in finding an inspiration for a project, where would you go to look for ideas?
2. Assume that you’ve decided to create a scarf for a friend, what is your next step?
3. Assume you like the 2nd option and want to get the pattern for that, how would you do that?
4. Assuming you’ve been working on this project for a few weeks and want to save your progress in the app, how would you do that?
Future iterations
Since we could not fulfill all of the users needs in this project because of time constraints, some of the future iterations we are looking for this app is to include a community page and the ability to share projects with other users and the ability to follow other users (similar to instagram).
Based on the usability testing I learned that the app was easy to use and people really liked the idea of having an app where you can search for crochet ideas and also save their projects as well. One of the biggest takeaways for me doing this project was that there will be LOTS of iterations. Some small, some big, but no matter the size of the update, it is always good to save the past iterations. It helps you understand your process better.
