P1 — Research Foundations
The Project.
This is a personal re-design, user experience research project spanning two weeks. The original goal of this project was to select a local business and better understand their consumers’ needs to help improve their shopping experience. The local business that I selected was Brave New World Surf and Snow — a local beach shop that carries surf, snow, and skate equipment, gear, and apparel.
Research.
The first stage was to conduct user research, allowing me to better understand the consumers’ wants, needs, and challenges. This user data was collected through surveys and interviews. I collected ~20 responses to my survey and conducted 3 interviews. From here, I gathered my responses and synthesized them into an affinity map, establishing the overall trends.
Define.
Based off my user research, I defined my consumer by creating a journey map and a persona, which then led to the creation of my problem statement:
The user needs to feel confident that they can purchase high quality and good fitting surfing & snowboarding gear at an affordable price and trustworthy store.
Ideate.
After my consumer and my problem were defined, I held an ideation session with 4 participants. While showing my problem statement and persona, I asked my participants “How Might We” (HMW) questions — and allowed them to help brainstorm better solutions to the most prominent consumer issues.
Through my ideation session, I realized my consumers really valued: brands, price, and recommendations from friends and knowledgeable sales associates. This helped me select my top features for this re-design project:
Solution.
How can I improve the business’s current website to maximize its user experience and cater to my consumers’ biggest pain points?
After collecting my user research, defining my consumer, and concluding on my ideation phase, I started to work on my solution. I created the following user flows, which incorporate the brand sorting filter, customer reviews, price sorting filter, and the ability to rent gear:
After creating my user flows, I began sketching my low-fidelity wireframes for the re-design of the current Brave New World Surf and Skate website. Then, I used the program, Marvel, to build out my Paper Prototype.
I conducted 1 usability test on my prototype, asking the tester to perform the following tasks: (1) Purchase a Used Billabong surfboard, (2) Rent a New Surfboard between $100 — $200, (3) Select a board, see a bad customer review rating, and return to board selection.
They were able to complete each task within 2 minutes. However, I did go back and fix 2 button placements in my wireframes, based off their interaction with my original prototype.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes.
Final Words — Reflection.
I have learned a lot in these last two weeks, but my two key takeaways are:
- Take your time with data research and data collection. The more you sit and digest the data you collected, the better you will understand the real needs of your user. What you think the user wants, may not be what they actually want and thus — you won’t be solving the real issue!
- Every stage is a moving part. Even when you think you have finalized a step — whether that be an affinity map, a persona, or a user flow, just know that things can change as soon as you move to your next step. You may go back to the drawing board, but that isn’t necessarily a setback, but a better understanding of your user!
