Chieve
A middle-person platform that acts as a marketplace between consumers and wholesalers for grocery delivery. Consumers may order in bulk, ranging from produce, imported goods, and live seafood.
YEAR
Summer 2020
TEAM
Eric J. Lee, Nico Hernandez, David Cao, KwanKiu Chu
Click to see the pitch video voiced by me! 🡫
Project Summary.
PROJECT TASK
To prototype a user interface for a mobile application while examining the issues of interactivity and product identity. Analyzing the market trends and product requirements was required to establish our product pitch.
MY ROLE
Designed the UI of the application while discussing its usability functions with other team members. Led group members in the design of the style guide and presentation slides.
Process.
DOMAIN, CONTEXTS, and RESEARCH
We focused on choosing a topic that is applicable to the current market trends and narrowed down our choice of topic to shopping at home. Wholesale delivery was chosen among three viable contexts and market research was conducted accordingly.
Presentation slides of Domain, Context, and Research. Slides were designed by me.
IDEA DEVELOPMENT
The idea of Wholesale Delivery was developed as we looked into its potential clients, goals, viability, and area of development.
Target Audience
Consumers who wish to avoid crowds due to Covid-19.
Consumers who prefer a smaller quantity of grocery items.
Goals
Deliver fresh groceries at a lower price
Increase customer satisfaction via same-day drop-off
Chat with others in the community about costs and quality
Why It’s Viable
Many consumers prefer only to purchase the amount they need but at a price closer to wholesale.
A delivery service that works around your schedule for drop off
Ensures the freshness of products as it arrives directly from the wholesaler
Prevent other shoppers from touching products before arriving in your hands
Areas of Development
Is there a significant advantage to using this over other marketplace-style apps that exist now?
Will there be a big enough user base for this kind of service?
PITCH
A mobile application, Chieve, that allows consumers to order groceries from wholesalers and have the groceries be picked up in a local communal area. Chieve provides a platform for communities to work with wholesalers to bring together orders from different households for wholesale distribution.
An illustration of how the application will process consumers’ orders designed by me
Understanding the Users.
USER PERSONA
We developed user personas to visualize the goals and needs of potential users of the application. We designed two individuals as potential users with the goal of wanting to buy high-quality products from wholesalers in small quantities.
User Persona slides designed by me. Content of the slides were worked on as a group.
THREE USER GOALS
Three common user goals were derived from the developed user personas.
Place an order from a wholesaler
Locate wholesalers based on proximity to them
Take a look at their upcoming orders
The identified user goals were used to distinguish different features of the application and were mapped out in low fidelity wireframes using Figma.
The UX flow of the application was decided as a group, whereas the UI layout was decided by me and a group member, KwanKiu.
User Goal 1: Place an order from a wholesaler
User Goal 2: Locate wholesalers based on proximity to them
User Goal 3: User wants to take a look their upcoming orders
Prototyping.
A overview of the master wireframe. My role at this stage focused on the interface layout.
STYLE GUIDE
The style guide of the app was led by me to develop the brand identity. My goal was to design an interface that felt professional and user-friendly. Light grey was used to achieve this look without leaving too much white space, while orange was used to bring bright colour to the interface Buttons were also designed using bright colours to give a pleasant, cheery look. San-serif fonts were used for a clean, simple visualization.
A style guide led by me for brand identity development.
PROTOTYPE
At this stage, we split roles within the group to apply the style guide to the grey-box prototype and to connect all the frames for interactivity. I was in charge of leading a team of three in the process of applying the style guide we made to the final prototype. The style guide was reiterated when new elements came up, such as a tooltip and an add-to-favourite button.
User Experience Evaluation.
USER EXPERIENCE EVALUATION
At the end of the project, we ran a usability test with fellow students as a group to gather their feedback on the overall application and its user interface design.
We asked the participants to complete pre and post-test questionnaires and to execute a task while we count the number of clicks to determine the efficiency of a button located in two different parts of the application.
According to the participants’ feedback, a couple of changes were made to the interface.
Added icons to represent the items sold by each wholesaler
Made the product page appear instead of the profile page upon a wholesaler selection
Moved favourites from profile page to home page
Reflection.
CHALLENGES
Ideating the application concept from scratch while analyzing market trends and product requirements came to me as a challenge as I am not specially trained for marketing or generating a product pitch. However, researching different domains for their viability and analyzing ideas from team members made the experience enjoyable. I also found that creating user personas was very useful in identifying the goals of the application and what should be prioritized in its user experience.
POSSIBLE FUTURE ITERATIONS
As this project was done within a school course, the scope of the project and the time allotment for it were limited to the course outline which did not involve moving beyond the Figma prototype. Although the actual launching of the application may be difficult as it would involve business considerations, I would be interested in developing a functional prototype and running another usability test with the application in its proper environment. I want to see what other developments I can make to make the user experience as pleasant as possible, especially for the ordering of the products as it is the process that addresses the main user goal of the application.