Freeing & Refining Functionality for FreeSpot:
a UX (re)Design Case Study
Overview.
FreeSpot is a free marketplace whose mission is to help cut down on waste by creating a platform for users to give and obtain resources of all kinds.
The goal of this project was for my UX team and I to assess and address usability issues with the FreeSpot native mobile application and create a redesign solution that would better serve its 2000+ subscribers.
My Role:
UX Researcher | Designer | Scrum Master Duration: 15 Days
Project Status: Complete
Business Research.
During our first team meeting, we noted several issues; search functionality that wasn’t working properly, app crashes, and a confusing user flow within navigation of the app. We began our research with the aspiration of gaining a better understanding of the company through a business lens.
We used the Competitive Matrix Analysis and Competitive Features Analysis to help identify things like key partners, cost structure and potential revenue streams.
We mapped FreeSpot and its competitors onto the matrix, based on a general to specialization scale, juxtaposed to where each platform stood as a non-profit or for-profit…
Then compared and contrasted features of FreeSpot’s app against its competitors by utilizing and looking into each of these applications’ goals and functions.
User Research.
Before diving into user research we met with our client to get feedback and their perspective of the problem space. They said their users have used platforms like Craigslist, OfferUp, and LetGo but are looking for something that solely focuses on free stuff and lets them actually ask for what they need. They provided us with the problem statement which was this: How might we provide people with a way to give away free stuff and request stuff within their communities?
Affinity Map.
After interviewing 12 users in total, we had solid viewpoints from both the perspective of the user and the giver. We pulled all of the most notable insights and takeaways users provided in the interviews, and wrote them on Post-It notes to form an affinity map.
Affinity Map
“I” Statements to Insights.
We grouped the common sentiments and labeled the groups, in which we turned into “I” statements to further humanize the data, and from those “I” statements we were then able to draw valuable insights, such as:
Users want a credible platform that authenticates all users and gives them the added ability to vet others on their own.
[Givers] find pleasure in and have preference for giving away or donating things they no longer need if it can help others.
Users value the ease and established trust of giving their belongings away to people they already know.
Personas.
User personas are fictional representations of our archetypal users. We synthesized our key research insights from our Affinity map and then created two personas to represent the aggregate of our interviewees and their wants and needs.
Eddie the Budgeter.
Our first persona was Eddie, a budgeting student who desires to save money at every opportunity. He represents one segment of the target audience who seeks to find and receive free items.
Marcella the Giver.
Our second persona is Marcella, representing the other target audience of those who desire to eliminate or donate unwanted items.
We focused on the “giver” persona because based on our review of the app, it seemed that a disproportionate number of FreeSpot users are recipients. Our team wanted to understand why there were fewer “givers” on the app & possible pain points. To empathize with Marcella, we imagined what her experience is like when she tries to declutter, by creating a user journey. This helped us visualize her frustrations & showed us opportunities to address.
It was clear at this point that our revised problem statement was this:
How might we help provide Eddie and Marcella a way to exchange free things in an efficient and secure manner?
Design Process.
We did initial testing of the app in its current state. Overall users found the app concept very intriguing and useful, but were not wholly confident about using it due to the frustrating usability issues. Now, it was time to start redesigning. We invited the client, FreeSpot CEO Daryl Holman Jr. to join us for a design studio round.
Design Studio.
Each person roughly sketched the main screens around the key features and functions of the app in timed sessions, and was provided feedback by the other participants. After ideation with the Daryl and further ideation amongst our team, we were ready to begin work on our mid-fidelity designs in Figma and start testing.
Mid-fi.
Some of the changes made:
Moved the search bar to the top of the screen for higher visibility/accessibility.
Added more options to the tab bar and a hamburger menu to provide app support to users.
Revised the formatting of the existing app by segmenting the home screen feed of posts by categories.
(Wanna give it a go? Link to Figma prototype can be found here.)
High-fi.
Informed by all of the data we collected from our research, insights drawn from usability tests as well as drawing from UX conventions such as heuristics, we developed a redesign that would address the pain points users experienced in the free marketplace. And it looks pretty cool too!
Testing.
For our third round of testing our focus was on understanding the issues users ran into in previous tests we worked towards lowering the difficulty ratings, time on tasks and maximizing the amount of directly successful user flows.
Test Results
Overall we saw substantial improvements from our first test of the existing app, to our final test of the High-fi prototype. Most notably was our tasks 4 and 6 had an enormous leap, jumping from 20% to 80% success rates for completing the tasks.
Recommendations and Conclusion
After final review of our last round of testing, we made the following recommendations in our Research Report:
Highlight the Create Post icon so that a user’s attention is drawn to it in the tab bar.
Utilize a hamburger menu for secondary navigation for FAQ, Safety Recommendations, and a feedback form.
Display distance information on feed screen and post pages.
Create post screens need a clearer explanation for what fields are for to improve accessibility.
Iterate on the high-fidelity version further and conduct more usability testing with avid FreeSpot users.
As we concluded our report we felt confident in our data and that our work towards improving the FreeSpot app will help subscribers by providing a more streamlined and effective way to give and obtain the resources they need. We look forward to seeing this product continue to flourish and provide value for local communities to GET FREE!
Fin
Thanks for reading!
To learn more about me, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/robindshumays/