Personal Project
Project Roles: UX Designer
Project Duration: 6 hours
Design an experience that makes it easier for sellers to intelligently
inventory their goods, and helps bargain hunters find the needle in a haystack.
I visited 2 garage sales, interviewed 6 people and sent out the online survey to get data from target audience.
Summary: 1/4 of the interviewers held their own garage sale before. All of them don't want to prepare it again.
For buyers, half of them always miss the garage sale they want to attend because of the bad memory.
Monica, 64, grew up in a craftsman bungalow in the NW section of Portland, OR. She works as an administrative coordinator for the Clackamas County School District. Monica is addicted to hold her own garage sale, because she can purity her garage which is full of leftover books or handiworks and wants to find a new way to supplement her income. But, Monica loves and hates garage sale. The reason is that preparing her own garage sale is often a headache for her. It’s difficult for her to gather and organize all the goods, and she’s always afraid of bad weather condition and some jurisdictions requirement.
Monica always uses her smartphone to get status updates from her family and she is open to try new applications. So Monica really wants an app that makes her much easier to prepare the own garage sale.
Rachel, 24 years old, works as a junior underwriter for a large, Swiss, reinsurance company. She has just finished her first year living in Portland. Rachel and her boyfriends are collectors. They usually go out on weekend and have fun searching for unique items at garage sale. Rachel saves lots of money by buying loved stuff for much less money. But she wants to spend less of her attention finding the places on her way and more time looking for better goods.
Rachel is a master of social media and uses different apps to target messages and connect friends. So she prefers an app helper that assists her to find the needle in a haystack and link with her schedule as well so she knows when and where she needs to be there.
Based on interview, I did the Customer Empathy Research to describe whole experience both seller and buyer got.
The black dots above the middle line present the good feeling and the dots below show the bad experience.
After built empathy and a deeper understanding of customers, I defined the common problems they have.
Hard to price the item
Don't know how worth it is
Have difficulty to post all the items, eg: lots of user input, can't update status timely
Meet the bad weather which ruins the whole event
Always miss the garage sale because of the late or forget the time
Can't contact with seller
Have no chance to know more about the goods
Can't find more information before go to the sale
Provide communication platform
User can chat with buyer or seller anytime and anywhere to catch more detail information.
Synchronize calendar and send notification
When find the preferred item, use add it to wish list and synchronize with personal calendar to keep remind.
Internet of Things price tag
By using the IoT price tag, user can better prepare the garage sale and synchronize online/onsite status.
Recommended price
System will recommend price based on user's input and similar items.
Rate the upcoming event to guarantee the sale
After decide which day to hold garage sale, app will grade and show weather information or penitential limitation in order to guarantee the sale.
Checklist and tips
Having the checklist with all the important steps to double check everything works well.
