OVERVIEW

In order to better understand the task at hand, we had to first understand Etsy, its business goals, and their direct and comparative competitors. 

We soon realized that we had two distinct user groups: Buyers and Sellers, so we interviewed six members of each user base to understand their behaviors and needs.

We also took a close look at the bidding processes and custom functions of companies like Ebay, 99designs, Artfire, Society6 and more.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS

The online marketplace changes and expands on a daily basis.

Etsy separates itself from the herd by:

• Providing quality handmade artisan-made items.
• Clarifying when something is mass produced to avoid confusing amounts customers.

In our research, we soon discovered that while Etsy does not have the full feature we were asked to develop— a way for fully custom items to be requested and produced — some Etsy sellers do take on custom orders via the existing messages feature.

Additionally, Etsy already has two existing mobile apps: one containing their online marketplace (BUYERS), and the other built explicitly for their customers with shops (SELLERS).  

COMPETITIVE/COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

We looked at competitors and comparative companies to see both how they handled the bidding and iterative design processes. Additionally we discovered that there was indeed a need for this service as none of our direct competitors serviced this particular market.

USER INTERVIEWS

We interviewed 12 people from both user groups - buyers and sellers- in order to understand their needs, preferences, and behaviors when it comes to creating and collaborating on custom orders. 

PERSONAS

After completing our research and developing a strong understanding of our two user groups, we created two primary personas that encompass the behaviors and needs of the Etsy user. 

PRIMARY | BUYER: Posting board for custom designs, chat function with designer, ability to view designers other work.                                

PRIMARY | SELLER: Ability to browse custom listings, simple chat/message functionality, way to showcase prior work. 

OVERVIEW

Our team began the sketching process by participating in a Design Studio. We combined the best of the ideas into low fidelity sketches in order to test basic site functionality. 

Once we tested on paper, we made the appropriate changes and moved into mid-fidelity wireframes and tested on three users. Though rapid prototyping, we made several changes at the mid-fidelity level. 

SKETCHING AND USER TESTING - LOW FIDELITY

Our process began with ideation. The team participated in a Design Studio to rapidly sketch and ideate dozens of concepts for our design. Since we were dealing with two applications and two user groups, after the initial white-boarding exercise we decided to split the designing responsibilities based on the familiarity each team member had with the specified user base.  I took responsibility for the seller application. After sketching, we tested for functionality and usability.

Buyer App Needs:

• Way for user to add new listing.
• Way to view active/inactive listings.
• Way to repost listings that didn't receive bids.
• Simple way to communicate during design process. 

Seller App Needs:

• Way for artisans to browse listings (by location?).
• To make bids on listings.
• Simple communication/messaging with buyers.
• Way to view pending/active bids

After completing our mid-fidelity wireframes, we tested again.

After our decisions had been validated on paper, we moved our designs into Sketch and tested again.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS

SELLER:

• Simple way to browse
• iconography needed clarifying
• Placing bid page was too overwhelming
• Users couldn't figure out where to go to see messages.

BUYER:

• Create a listing was overwhelming to users - needed to be split up
• Iconography needs clarifying.
• Clearer feedback once tasks are completed.
• Users wanted distinguished custom/normal messages.

USER FLOWS

Once we solidified the functionality of the site, we were able to solidify the site User Flows. These two flows depict the both user's ideal path through the custom features. 

OVERView

After completing our mid-fidelity mobile wireframes and tests, we made the necessary changes and tested again. Additionally, we went back to the research and conducted additional interviews to make sure that our changes were appealing to the correct user group.  

As this was a shorter sprint, we weren't able to put the design through as many iterations. However, we were able to come to a solution that was deemed functional, usable, and delightful. 

ITERATIONS

We user tested our mid-fi/hi-fi wireframes on four people, and made changes based on their critical feedback. As this was a short sprint, we were unable to iterate as much as we would've liked.  Below are some select changes we made from hi-fi to color.

overview

We built out our full color mockups from the changes made to our hi-fi wireframes. We knew that testing in color would provide critical feedback from users regarding the feel of the product. 

KEY SCREENS:

BUYER

HOMEPAGE - New hammer icon gets user to the home page. User's only option from there is to create a new listing or view pending/active/inactive listings. 

CREATE A LISTING - User creates a listing by adding inspiration photos, title, category, and message/description.

PENDING/ACTIVE/INACTIVE BIDS - User can see listings that still haven't been bid on, or bids they haven't accepted, as well as active projects. Users can also repost inactive bids that haven't been accepted. 

SELLER

CUSTOM HOMEPAGE- The For You section has suggested bids for the user based on location. User can also browse bids by type. Additionally the user can go to "My Bids" to view pending bids. 

CUSTOM ORDERS- Now located in the order section. User can view messages and activities related to a specific order on the order landing page. 

PLACING A BID - After browsing, user can place a bid on an order and set their timeframe, price, and add photos to showcase their work.