The Problem
The problem addressed by my project is that of old books which often clutter peoples' spaces at home. People have too many old books that they often do not know what to do with. There are several options for that problem, one of them is to give them away to a charity or library, but this inevitably is connected with unnecessary commute that may take up a lot of time. Another option is to throw them away, but that seems like a waste of resources. Finally, there is the option to sell/buy used books online and that last option is further explored in this project. My aim is to provide the fastest and the easiest way to give away the old books.
Secondary Research
On the basis of the formulated problem I have carried out a secondary research. The problem space was defined on the basis of a Google search and a competitive analysis of the competition on the Polish market - Allegro, OLX, Facebook.
The analysis made it possible to highlight the main problems connected with the online sellers of used products. First, the medium used for selling buying used products is cluttered with many products making it time consuming to get to the wanted results. There are no relevant - for books - search categories. We only get the generic categories for different products. The interface of the medium is not always clear as to what steps to take in order to sell/buy product.
Primary Research
The carried out screener survey helped me to narrow down my research to the target audience between age of 25-35 that regularly buy/sell books online and have preference for using their apps and mobile phones instead of laptops to do so. The interviews confirmed the need for a book specific place and additionally revealed that there is a market for children books and textbooks as they quickly outgrow them.
Synthesis
The gathered data was put together into three empathy maps which allowed the see the main pain points as well as possible gains connected with buying/selling books online.
- no book specific medium for buying books
- no book specific medium for buying books
- buying new books is not eco-friendly
- process of delivery is not well organised
- printing labels for orders is cumbersome
- online process of selling books seems complicated
+ easily and fast selling/buying books
+ clear direction for the selling process
+ medium dedicated only to used books
Personas
The synthesised empathy maps served to come up with three different personas that would be the typical users of the used books app shown below: the tech geek, the bookworm and the mother.
User Flow
In the next step red routs were created to show the process of completing the main tasks as a user of the app.
Wireframes
In the next step wireframes have been created to show the basic flow of the app. This has been designed and prototyped in Figma.
Moodboard
To better convey the message of the app I looked for inspiration that resulted in the creation of the moodboard which allowed to convey the message of the app.
Branding
Mission/Vision
Our app focuses on crating a space where you can share your passion for books and give them another life.
Brand Personality
Our brand has a cheerful character that creates a place where take part in creating a happy journey for your books.
Brand attributes
Cooperation, happiness, Appreciation
User Testing
In the final step a high fidelity prototype was created which also served for user testing.
After a round of tests users often were confused when choosing the dispatch point on the app so I have decided to make it more prominent and enclosed it in a separate area so as to make it clear for them that the dispatch point was chosen and leave the button beneath it as inactive so as they would see clearly what actions can be taken.
After a round of tests users often were confused when choosing the dispatch point on the app so I have decided to make it more prominent and enclosed it in a separate area so as to make it clear for them that the dispatch point was chosen and leave the button beneath it as inactive so as they would see clearly what actions can be taken.
Another change done after the first round of testing concerned a split action button in the product view. This seem to confuse some users so I decided to drop that option and move the action button further up. To the same view the product list was changed to show titles and authors instead of sellers as the users seemed to find it unnecessary for that information to be seen when listing products.
Working Prototype
Finally, a working prototype was created using Figma. Thank you for reading through!
