One week into my UX journey, I was tasked to create an interactive prototype of an e-commerce website for a retailer in Ponce City Market. I decided to tackle one of the most well-known women's boutiques, Anthropologie.
I realized that I need to find a way to limit my scope after reviewing their website since redesigning the whole site within 2 weeks would be impossible. Then, I stumbled across Anthropologie’s microsites for their wedding and outdoor decoration brands, and thought to myself...
“What if I create a separate e-commerce site for users to thrift and sell Anthropologie items!?”
Scope : E-Commerce website to buy and sell second-hand Anthropologie items
Deliverable : Mid-fidelity Interactive Prototype
My Role : Solo UX Designer
Time frame : 2 weeks
Tool : Adobe XD
I conducted in-person interviews with 5 participants. With Anthropologie’s target audience in mind, the participants were all female with ages ranging from 20s to 30s. My goal was to understand the user’s experience when online, offline, and thrift shopping as well as if/how sustainability plays a role in the user’s shopping habits.
Once the interviews were completed, I gathered the data and used affinity mapping to identify common trends. Then, I created a user persona to convey these insights.
I wanted to gather an in-depth understanding of how other e-commerce sites are designed and performed an extensive comparative analysis on Anthropologie and two online thrift shops, Thredup and Poshmark.
First, I looked at the sites at a high overview level to gain a general idea. Then, I evaluated the specifics:
My next step was to conduct a SWOT analysis to understand Anthropologie’s business needs. I determined that quality and loyalty is a major strength for the company, but they don’t have a large online presence.
With that in mind, I believe Anthrogeographie would be a great opportunity for Anthropologie to increase their online presence in a nontraditional way.
I asked 3 participants to perform open card sorting on 100 miscellaneous fashion items to understand the user’s expectations and how they would categorize a particular clothing item.
I thought card sorting would give me all the answers…
Card sorting helped me to define the mega menu, but it didn't create categories that were specific enough to address the user’s need to easily find desired items without spending hours browsing.
* break time *
Depop is a peer-to-peer social shopping app with Instagram-like structure. Users can browse through their feed to discover new items from sellers that they liked/followed.
Similar Depop, I decided to incorporate alternative ways for users to discover new items based on the sellers rather than the items themselves.
With a deeper understanding of the site structure and key features, I began laying out the site map and user flows.
Back to the oldie but goodie pen to paper, I sketched a set of lo-fi wireframes to play with different ideas.
I iterated on my sketches based on the feedback from my peers and create a mid-fi wireframe in Adobe XD. Then, I started prototyping using the user flows as a guide.
I was pleasantly surprised that users were able to easily navigate through the process and performed the tasks assigned (all the research and analysis paid off!). However, that doesn’t mean it was perfect.
I realized I forgot something pretty crucial here...
1. I want to perform more usability test to make sure that most of the obvious drawbacks are eliminated.
2. Create a high-fidelity mockup.
3. I would love to build on the selling process for users who wants to sell on Anthrogeographie and conduct research to include features that would ensure a seamless selling process.
This project is a project of many discoveries. Not only did I gain exposure to design concepts, methodology, and tools to create human-centric products, I also learned a bit about myself as a UX designer. As someone who likes to consider every angle, I realized that I tend to go too in-depth. My biggest challenges was learning to let go of perfection and embrace the iterative learning process.
