Before meeting the client, we had a group meeting to get to know each other. We learned about each others' backgrounds, experiences, working styles, and expertise. We also prepared some questions for the kickoff meeting with our client. We also agreed to always communicate with each other whenever there's questions or confusion. I found this was extremely helpful for the project to move smoothly and on time.
During the initial kickoff meeting, we clarified the client's needs and expected deliverables, which made it easier for us to later identify what we should be focused on and prioritized tasks. The client wanted to add a group purchase option to allow a more diverse shopping experience for customers, as well as providing farmers more ways to sell their products.
Creating a better mobile purchasing experience and eventually develop a native mobile app is the long-term goal, but for our project, we will only focus on creating wireframes for group purchase experience on a web-based mobile app/browser. The client also preferred we use the same visual style from previously developed wireframes for the "meet the farmers" function. The targeted user group is young families and most of the existing customers are young mothers.
With these in mind, our group discussed what the MVP should include together and identified 3 main functions to focus on:
Next, each of us worked individually made user flow diagrams to better visualize users' experience logically. We also sketched out some sample screens. We compared discussed our solutions and integrated them into an initial draft.
We presented our progress to the client via video recording
Next step we digitized our sketches in Figma. Because all three of us had slightly different visual styles, we agreed that I would be in charge to make the visual style more consistent.
During the production phase, our group mostly worked individually to make the most our of everyone's time, but we also worked together to work more efficiently when there are multiple ideas on the table. We are glad that we selected tools like Figma and Miro that enables us to work on the same board simultaneously, which drastically improved our productivity and made it very easy to convey our design ideas to each others.
After two round of iteration from client's comments and our own observation, we finalized our design. Because I created component for each elements, it was easy to modify the design without intensive workload.
Our finalized red routes:
Route 1: Create your own group / Add more items to your group
Due to the time limit, we could not conduct usability tests to validate our design. We did mention this to our client and suggested they should consider recruiting users for at least one round of guerrilla usability tests.
We also suggested the client consider having future UX designers work on an onboarding experience that can guide users who are not familiar with group purchases. The tutorial should explain the main differences between traditional individual purchases and group purchases, as well as how groups work and users’ options when a group is failed to form at the end.
It was a brand new experience for me because it was not only the first real product I worked on but also the first time to work with teammates and clients in different time zones. The largest challenge was to respect and accommodate every member’s schedule as well as keep pushing the project to move forward.
Another important lesson from this experience was that it was worth spending time and putting some effort into listing any potential roadblocks ahead of jumping right into the project. Last but not the least, it wouldn’t be a successful project without everyone’s dedication and timely communication. We are all proud of ourselves for being able to utilize our strengths and put together the best product we could within the time limits.
You can try out the prototype with this link
If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
