TextbookTrade is an online platform we are building as we speak. It is an online platform that will enable City University students to buy and sell their textbooks. 

 

Problem: There is a big number of students who, for various different reasons, are not eager to or are unable/unwilling to buy all the books the university asks them to each semester; it could be due to high cost, environmental sensitivity or short term necessity of the book.

Solution: With TextbookTrade we are offering to these students the option to either buy used books via the platform or sell their books to other fellow students.

Benefit: In this way we are helping students save money, utilise unwanted books and recycle. 

The client requested the platform not to allow any money transactions to take place but enable communication between the users via a private messaging system. Through the platform the students can search for books, contact the owner, meet and buy the books they requested. They can also act as sellers by uploading the books they want to sell, meet with potential buyers and complete the transaction offline. 

 

Our team comprises of a back-end developer and a front-end developer/designer with whom I am working closely at each stage of the process. Given time constraints and budget limitations we are building the platform using PHP, Javascript, Bootstrap (HTML and CSS)
Duration: 2 months 

 

One of the initial stages of the design process was to run a short survey. I created a questionnaire using Typeform to help me gauge some initial reactions and gather more information about our users. 

Following, I conducted some short interviews with a few students. The analysis of the findings allowed me to develop personas and put them into different scenarios, describing some of their pain points and how TextbookTrade provides a viable solution. 

On the meantime, I conducted some online research to find out what similar offers already exist. Based on the findings we had a clearer idea of how such a platform could be structured and what features we could add. 

Structural Framework
I first created a sitemap with the basic, building blocks of the product to help the developer understand what it is needed to be included on the platform. 

User Flow 
I then proceeded to create the User Flow on Illustrator to enable the team to see the whole system at once and the possible user interaction while navigating through the website. 

 

Our Design goals: 
-Allow the user to easily upload books to sell
-Allow the user to browse books to buy
-Give them an incentive to be returning and frequent users 

During this phase I had to iterate from the initial wireframes I created to tackle some issues that appeared along the line and allow the UI to be more intuitive. 
I created the wireframes using Sketch. 

Having the wireframes & user flow as a guide we worked closely with the designer to create High Res interactive prototypes using Invision. These allowed us as a team to observe exactly how well the product will be received before it gets build.

 

Below you can see a live prototype for the mobile version of the website capturing the process of uploading a book and partly the process of Signing In/Signing Up to the platform. 

You can view the live prototype here

The platform is a still a work in progress.

 

For testing purposes I will be using UX check, a widget that helps identify usability issues through a heuristic evaluation based on Nielsen's 10 heuristic principles.

We aim for a soft launch to give us time to test the platform with a small number of users, observe how they will be interacting with the various features and iterate where needed. This will give us a month of testing before it goes live & promoted to all City University students, old & new.