Designfinds | Alexandre Woelflé

As a vintage deco and furniture enthusiast I was often disappointed by trading platforms that are already existing and that either lack functionalities or that I associate with frustration.

I decided to work on an upgraded version of a trading website for those products, combining already existing features, taking different elements from different sites and adding my own touch.

The main challenge was to find what the main problems were on existing platforms while asking users and to find solutions that made sense

Problems to solve- assumptions

- Bidding is often just for generalistic websites like ebay

- Categorizations are too generalistic

- No or too little filters like time periods

- You end up using eBay all the time

Methods that I used

- User research

- Market research and best practices

- User Interviews

- Ideation

- Wireframing

- Prototyping

- Usabiltiy testing

Research

1. Best practices used by similar platforms/sites

- Information architecture

- Photos/Images

- Navigation bars/ search

- Categorization

2. User/ market research

Main findings:

- Second hand purchases are done by every existing social class

- Those aged 25 to 64 are the most likely to have purchased second-hand books and furniture.

- Ebay is the most popular place to buy second-hand items online

- Women are more likely to buy different types of second-hand items

- The channels and reasons for choosing used items differ by age group and gender.

- Second hand is mostly bought online

Main problems to solve

24 questions
three participants
Zoom, phone and face to face
Age: 27 to 33 years old

Findings:

The importance of photos
Categorizations are always bad or unsufficient
You do not always get what you see
Product information are a big plus and are often lacking
Getting to the right time period is difficult
Contacting a seller should be easy
Sellers' rating matter a lot in order to decide for or against a purchase
Payment should be easy and fast, PayPal is a must have

User interviews

Too little product information like dimensions
Often bad photos= you dont' get what you see
Too little or inconsistent categorization
Either bidding or buy now, rarely both
Seller's rating + messaging doesn't exist for every platform

Ideation

Main functionalities

- Accurate and precise product categorization

- Detailed filters with era selection

- Products photos with details in different angles

- Seller rating option

- Message function to contact sellers

Wireframing

Paper sketching

Low fidelity wireframing on Figma

High fidelity Prototyping

Home page

Product details

Contact page

Product page

THE FEATURES

- Precise selection possibilities

Price Range
Distance selection option
Condition selection
Type of trading
Design style and era with precise categories

- Photo carousel in every angle

Detailled photos with different angles enable to see all flaws and to see the product as clearly as it is possible to do

- Buy now / Bidd

The sites enables buy now options as well as bidding as research showed that price is a big factor in second hand purchases

The number of views is also something that shows how popular the object is and is a plus for users

Seller's review with last connection to help the users

Send message and place bid buttons

- Diverse payment options and delivery options

National and international shipment
Diverse Shipment options
Paypal
Classic payment methods

- Rating options and seller contact

Accurate and precise information about the seller
Possibility to get in touch with seller rapidly
Layout enables the users to have an overview on the reviews on one page
All those information help the user's to feel in safe hands
Secured process

Prototyping

Prototyping and testing

The different connections between the site's pages for the prototyping on Figma

UI Choices

Minimalistic design and colors
Simple but elegant font
Pale and neutral aesthetics that fit to the target audience
Keep it simple

Clean and geometrical Logo that remembers the world of design and minimalistic aesthetics

Simple font that fits the target and the products

Font Name: Maax

Grey minimalistic colors for titles, backgrounds and buttons

Usability testing and results

Three participants
Done at my home and assistant, one done via phone

Tasks:

Choosing one product that is available on the website
Contacting the seller and checking his ratings
Placing a bid for some products
Going for a chair in Scandinavian minimalism and going through the process

Results and takeaways:

Some technical issues with prototyping and getting to the right pages had to be fixed
Some buttons did not work correctly and had to be optimized
Fonts were partly too small
Overall the parcipants liked the aesthetics, the minimalism, the categorization
Excellent User Experience

Challenges and pitfalls

Two weeks timeframe for the project requires to focus on the main functions
Prioritization in terms of pages was key
Being a user oneself is a bias and it is important to listen to other users
User testing was a bit too little and could have been expanded

Designfinds: Design and furniture trading

Background