Habitual
Case Study, Prototyping, UX/UI Design
Mobile e-commerce app, designed to give users a unique personalized shopping experience
Mobile e-commerce app, designed to give users a unique personalized shopping experience
With over 2 billion digital buyers in the world today and the e-commerce market promising more growth, my client wanted to enter the world of e-commerce and reach all the potential customers. My client is looking to create a mobile app that is not only intuitive and user friendly, but also personable and truly user focused. They want to build an app that allows users to shop for anything they want, easily create multiple wishlists and also feel like they are getting a very personalized shopping experience.
View Prototype
1. Users want a personalized shopping experience
2. Users want the option to create multiple wishlists
3. Users want one-stop shop
1. Users are able to select their interests, which in turn helps habitual show relevant items based on what they like for a truly personalized shopping experience.
2. Within the app, users are able to create and save multiple wishlist items.
3. With Habitual, users can shop for anything they want, right from the tip of their fingers...making it the perfect one-stop shop
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 of the biggest online retailers - Amazon and Walmart. Analyzing these two apps gave me a great understanding of each of their strengths and weaknesses and showed me what it takes for an e-commerce app to be successful.
Amazon:
Strengths: biggest online retailer, one-stop shop, customer loyalty, free shipping for Amazon prime members
Weaknesses: not very personalized, not the cheapest, need to pay for prime to get the benefits
Walmart:
Strengths: affordable prices, one-stop shop, online and branches
Weaknesses: cookie cutter - not customized to your needs, lower quality products
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 shop online?
2. What is your main reason for shopping online?
3. What are your biggest frustrations with the current app, if you use any?
User Survey Results
I learned that the biggest reason why people shop online is for the convenience of being able to shop 24/7, from anywhere in the world.
Top 3 pain points of current apps:
1. Doesn’t feel personalized- 63.6%
2. Long/Inaccurate delivery time - 54.5%
3. High delivery fee- 40.9%
Top 3 most requested features:
1. Cheap/fast delivery - 77.3%
2. Personalized shopping experience - 63.6%
3. Accurate item description - 40.9%
When looking at the demographics of the users, majority of them were between the ages of 15-35 and most of them were females.
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 we gathered from the survey results, the interview participants also wanted to see a map in their order tracker to see where their package is at, similar to Amazon and they also wanted to see a desktop version of it so they can shop from a bigger screen.
Once that was completed, I moved on to creating 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.
Age: 35
Occupation: Sales Manager
Core Needs: Ability to shop for more than one type of item online.
Wants the best deals possible
Fast delivery option is important
Frustrations: Price of product too high compared to the quality
Not many choices available online for a one-stop shop
Can't find a store that feels personalized
Age: 24
Occupation: Coffee Shop Owner
Core Needs: Ability to pre-order new games online
Fast delivery is a must
Wants a personalized shopping experience
Frustrations: Currently finds a lot of the games he likes to be out of stock
Dislikes cookie cutter apps, wants something that feels more personalized
User Stories
The user stories align with the client requirements, where users want to be able to create and save multiple wishlist items, want the convenience of a one-stop shop and get a unique personalized shopping experience based on their interests. 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 sketching some ideas and started creating user flows and sitemap. Next I worked on a few iterations of wireframes.
I decided to go with color orange for our brand because the color orange is linked with confidence and friendliness and that is how we wanted users to feel when they used this app. It’s also a very cheerful color so it gives people a positive, happy feeling. "Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow"
The bag is an imagery for shopping. The smiley face and the big bright sun on top gives the app a "happy and cheerful" feel.
Usability Testing
I conducted a remote usability testing through Maze with approximately 20 testers and received very positive feedback. They all said the app was simple and easy to use. The app had a 100% completion rate with 58% being a direct success and the rest being indirect success. The average time spent on each screen was less than 6 seconds and the average mis-click was only 7.2%. They said it was easy to use and intuitive and everyone felt very positive towards the color and layout of the app. Some minor updates that came out of the testing was to add the skip button in the onboarding process for those who didn’t want to read through it all, and to add back buttons to a few of those pages as well as making the continue buttons a bit smaller. All of these updates have already been made.
Some quotes from the usability testing:
"You did a great job on this app! I thought it was designed super well. Loved the colors, images and layout. Onboarding was very easy and the app flowed well. I would use this app in the real world."
“I like all the animations and prompts. It’s not like your typical “amazon” or “e-bay” app because it adds personality and it gets the users connected with the app right away. The onboarding was really well done. The app was very intuitive.”
"Great, responsive design. I like the color scheme and layout! Good job!"
Tasks asked of users to complete:
1. Please go through the onboarding screens and complete the signup process. (optional- you may choose to upload a photo or skip this step)
2. Next, please add the 49” Dell screen to your wishlist from under the “Hot Deals”. Then navigate to your wishlist/saved items.
3. Now go to your home page and add the Xbox One Elite controller to your cart from under “Your Interests”
4. Lastly, finish the checkout process and purchase the items in your cart.
Future iterations
Due to time constraints and because mobile e-commerce is gaining such traction, we built this app with the mobile-first design in mind. However, part of the future iteration of this app will be to make it available in desktops and tablet versions as well. On top of that, we will also be making some feature updates with the app as well. We will be adding notification and alert features, such as when an item a user has saved goes on sale, or if an item is out of stock, etc. And lastly, we will be integrating google maps to our delivery tracker system so users can see exactly where their package is.
Based on the usability testing I learned that the app was easy to use and people really liked the idea of having a personalized shopping experience. They enjoyed the flow of the app and all the small micro-interactions which made it more fun and gave the app a bit more personality. I enjoyed working on this project a lot, it was a lot of work but it was very fun. I learned that sometimes adding even a tiny micro-interaction can make a huge difference on how people perceive the app and the feeling they get from it. With an e-commerce site like this, it is very easy to get carried away with creating a lot of different pages and that was a bit challenging for me to stay focused and create an MVP.
