Project
Wishes & Wishers
All over the world, people celebrate different ceremonies, it could be birthdays, marriage, etc. Among all these celebrations, one thing is constant, gifts. As simple as this is, it is probably the most complex thing ever. What can of gift should I get? How much should I spend?
Summary
I was responsible for the digital experience of all digital products designed and developed by Cognitive labs.
We continuously develop new and improved old client products on various platforms through modern design and software development practices.
Hired a small design team of product designers to create experiences on iOS and Android.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Core Responsibilities
Creative Direction, Product Strategy, Competitive Analysis, Guerrilla Usability Testing, User Flows, Interaction Design, and Visual Design.
Timeline
4 months
Problem
Addressing the efficient way of gifting.
25%
are scared to get their friends and families the wrong gifts
Over 75%
of people dont know what to give their friends as gifts
Over 60%
are too busy to get the gifts..
Goals
Design an effective way of gifting by making gift-receiving very easy.
The Challenge
Gifting is an act that involves two parties. How do we strike a balance where by the giver is fulfilled and the receiver is happy with the gift?
Receiver goals (Primary user)
Primary goal: To define the type of gifts that would be preferred and to reduce the number of unwanted gifts.
Receiver goals (Primary user)
Secondary goal: To gift friends and family the optimal gift; which will make them happy on their special day.
Simplified user journey (primary and secondary)
Evaluative research insights
Insight 1
Solution must be mobile app for easy access
Based off research that most people spend time on mobile phones rather than on computer screens, it is paramount that the solution is mobile app and not a desktop or web-app first.
Insight 2
Too many buttons confused users and causes cognitive overload
To reduced cognitive load on users, I simplified the number of actions the users are going to carry out.
Insight 3
Personalized, friendly copy made people happy
Friendly welcome greetings and showing an indication of progress helped drive user behaviour. Content must be able to utilize modern communication method of appeal to the target audience.
Insight 4
Gamifications help understand and keep the product interesting
Make the experience more fun by introducing gamification and a virtual reward system to influence behaviour.
Solution 1
Building the experience. Making gift-receiving very easy.
We leverage on secondary data based on the availability and to also get a glimpse into the demography and psychography of our idea users, however since the product is an MVP and there is no direct competition, we only defined who want to appeal to and looked into materials that have information about them.
Solution 2
A simple registration process.
To reduce bounce rate and make user onboarding easy, simple, and fast.
Solution 3
Quick Productivity
The onboarding process is also designed to help the user focus more on the task, the basic KYC is just to help users save their data on the platform.
Solution 4
Task oriented
The page is designed such that the user doesn’t waste unnecessary time trying to figure out what the product does. It leads directly to creating Wishlist.
Solution 5
Building the experience to focus on speed and simplicity.
Enabling the users to setup their Wishlist, as quickly as possible is very essential, so we crafted an experience with this in mind.
Solution 6
Leverage on existing mental models
We borrowed ideas from platform our users are already familiar with, to help make interaction easier through fluent/easy transfer of knowledge.
Other screen designs
The Refinement
Testing With Users
Improvement 1
Change Red to Green
While the overall response from our participants were great, they pointed out that the color of the buttons is closer to red and it is triggering to them. Some complained that it made them feel like they were making an error. I changed this to the brand’s green color.
Improvement 2
Third party personal shopper
While testing with the users, some of them asked for the ability to outsource the buying of the gifts to someone else as they would be busy with the planning of the event or occasion or ceremony and would love to delegate that part of the journey to someone else. This part of the journey was documented for an app as the current objective of the business was to launch as soon as possible. The idea of finding a certified personal shopper that would serve as a third party would be considered in the future.
Creating a design system and illustration library from scratch
Componets & Color scheme
Buttons
Forms
Background and card model - Communicating emotions
We used gradient background generated from the mixing the colors from the brand colors to generate an unique product assest that allows identification and distinguish the product from others that looks and does almost the same functions.
Impact
0ver 20,000 sign-ups within 3 months
156% increase in active merchants
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for this metrics.
Project takeaways
Designing with users in the driver seat is the optimal way
The product was seamless and easy to develop because the users were carried along the whole journey. The new feature of third-party personal shopper could have been developed as part of the MVP but was not, due to the budget and managerial paperworks that it would have involved.
Proper naming and brand strategy is needed before designing an app
The product has rebranded as its major users demography pronounce the name as Witches and Witchers; these was found out after the product launch, even though, it helped the product’s PR to more downloads. The decision makers decided to change the name of the product.