Second Sprouts
UX Design | User Experience Design | App Design
My Role
UX Lead — Interaction Design, Visual Design, User Flows, Rapid Prototyping, Business Model
Team
Sarah Cianciola
Yan Tian
Parnian Vafa
Wendy (Wenqing) Yin
Timeline & Status
3 Months, Launched in September 2023
Design Challenge
Project Summary
Second Sprouts is an innovative app designed to revolutionize how college students manage their furniture during their frequent moves.
The aim of this project is to design an app that offers a comprehensive solution to the challenges of time constraints, budget limitations, and the absence of physical assistance and transportation, which students often face when relocating.
Each year, Americans discard over 12 million tons of furniture, creating mountains of solid waste that have grown 450% since 1960.
Consequently, the issue of furniture waste has evolved into a pressing concern that demands immediate attention.
Our initial research has shown that college students express a desire to acquire and dispose of furniture in eco-friendly ways.
Nonetheless, it's evident that many of them face certain constraints that prevent them from fully embracing these practices
Main Features
Buying Furniture
Users can purchase second-hand furniture through the platform with the ideal prices and services to ease the process of moving.
Reward System
The rewards system incentivizes continued platform use for furniture needs, using a tree seed planting concept to symbolize sustainability. Users earn points (seeds) for app usage, which can be redeemed for discounts or purchases, visually represented by seed and tree icons.
Selling Furniture
Users can utilize the “Sell” button on the homepage, or on the “Marketplace” tab to sell any items they may need to dispose of.
Inspired by platforms like Facebook's Marketplace, the goal with this tab was to give users a platform that had a familiar feel but with a more trustworthy basis.
Community
The Community page on our platform allows users to connect, share, and get inspired to buy or refurbish secondhand furniture, fostering unity and providing social media benefits.
Profile Page
The Profile page offers a comprehensive user hub for everything from personal information and settings to their purchase and sale histories.
This feature also offers a help center and an about section, as is present on most online platforms.
Easy to Track
Research Method
Interviews
We first conducted semi-structured interviews, and the goal was to understand how students buy furniture, where they buy it, who helps them, and whether they use sustainable disposal methods.
The interviews were with 2 undergrad students and 4 grad students. Our research encompassed -
What types of companies do students buy from?
What factors are involved when students buy furniture?
What are the current ways to dispose of furniture?
What are sustainable ways for people to dispose of furniture?
Contextual Interviews
We then conducted contextual interviews to understand the big picture of the furniture reuse and recycling system by both observing and questioning users in this space.
The interviews were with a junk removal company, Junk King, and two local charity stores, the Salvation Army and Goodwill.
Our research encompassed -
What is the recycling process?
Who are the stakeholders?
What are some existing recycling systems?
What are the issues therein?
What role does the government play here?
Task Analysis
To dive deeper into the process, we conducted two task analyses.
Task 1: Buying a bed frame
A college student on a budget wants to buy a secondhand bed frame and does not want to spend more than $200.
In this process the student researchers what type of bed frame they need, where to get it, and then transports it to their apartment
Goals: College students have to furnish their apartments cheaply while under time constraints.
Key Findings: The key findings were there are many decisions that need to be made and this is done by collecting alot of research and they additionally need external support during this task.
Insights
Task 2: Disposing of a couch
A college student is pressed for time and has to dispose of his couch from his apartment at the end of the school year.
Because students relocate more frequently than other average people and are less familiar with local furniture reuse networks, they could encounter various challenges in the process of disposing of a used couch at the time of move out.
Goals: College students have to properly dispose used furniture cost-effectively and sustainably while under time constraints.
Key Findings: Due to our target group and task context, disposing of furniture, which varies in shape, size, and material, requires extra time and effort. This is compounded by transportation issues, as many students lack vehicles for moving furniture.
From our research, we have gained insights into the entire system and identified key stakeholders. This system map clarifies relationships and conflicts across various scenarios, guiding our upcoming design phase.
Through our research, system maps, and multi-links analysis, we developed a needs analysis map. We identified overlapping needs, with top desires being quality furniture, reduced junk waste, government support, delivery efficiency, access to secondhand furniture information, and sustainability awareness. This led to our design requirements in the later stage.
Ideation
Our aim is to design a platform that would encompass sustainably obtaining and disposing of furniture with better accessibility and efficiency. We developed 7 design requirements based on the needs analysis and metrics on how to measure these requirements.
After our ideation activity, we refined to 10 ideas, and created two story boards out of the ten.
Storyboard 1:
Storyboard 2:
Conceptualization
Our prototype encompasses a homepage, profile page, buy and sell pages, as well as a community section. We aimed to provide a platform that included as many considerations and capacities as possible, with the most simplistic and intuitive design. The respective overview sections are as follows:
Userflow
Our prototype has two different user flow types, one for sellers, and the other for buyers. The seller flow targets the listing of items, the buyer flow targets the browsing of items.
Low-Fi Prototype
Final Solution
Our platform is designed with logos, ethos, and pathos, focusing on a comprehensive solution for sustainable furniture needs. It features a rewards system and a youthful design to attract college students, our target audience. Integrating marketplace and community elements, it offers unique connections with furniture and addresses needs like disposal, obtainment, storage, and moving, considering time, cost, accessibility, usability, and sustainability. While tailored for students, it also serves others like the elderly and disabled, aiming for inclusive design to meet diverse user needs.
Design System
Usability Testing
The testing method we chose to implement was user-based usability testing. We selected this method because we wanted to understand if the design requirements were met and effective for our target users- college students. The usability tests were conducted in the form of in-person moderated interviews.
The first design requirement can be broken down into two broad user goals: 1) the user wants to buy a leather chair and 2) the user wants to sell a used couch bed. The second design requirement can generate a user goal in testing that the user wants to have some motivation to keep reusing the app/a sense of community to trust and lean on.
We derived three separate task scenarios for testing the first two user goals. We used the three distinct parts of the furniture transaction process to be included in this task — buying, selling, and the furniture delivery feature. To test these tasks, we created a set of measurement metrics, including task performance and self-report metrics.
More specifically, we were measuring task success (frequency or completion percentage), completion time (time taken to complete task), errors (frequency of errors by task), and learnability (improvement of performance over time). As for self-report metrics, we used items from ASQ and NASA-TLX for quantitative scales.
Lesson Learned
Embrace the Big Picture:
Our iterative design process taught us the importance of stepping back to understand the broader problem. By thinking expansively and conducting exploratory research, we gained deeper insights into our users' needs, leading to a more suitable solution than we might have otherwise discovered. This approach allowed us to refine our ideas effectively, ensuring we addressed the core issue.
Topic Selection Matters:
Reflecting on our process, choosing a topic with clearer ties to our theme would have been more straightforward. Our initial uncertainty about our topic's relevance to civic systems influenced our decisions more than user benefits did. A more directly relevant topic would have streamlined our focus and decision-making.
Comprehensive Solutions Over Partial Fixes:
During ideation, we wrestled with two main ideas, each addressing different aspects of our problem. However, neither provided a complete solution. Post-selection user testing indicated that our rewards system wasn't as impactful as hoped. Future projects would benefit from earlier and more extensive user feedback on all initial concepts, potentially revealing more effective solutions.
Tailor Evaluation Criteria:
Our experience showed that using generic heuristics, like those from the Nielsen Norman Group, may not always yield the most useful feedback. Customizing our evaluation criteria to our specific project could have provided more relevant and detailed insights. For instance, questioning users about physical demands in a context where it wasn't applicable was unproductive.
Learning Through Mistakes:
Despite challenges and missteps, our project was a success. The creative freedom we had allowed for a wide range of research, design, and solution development. The mistakes we made were invaluable learning experiences. They have enhanced our skills in iterative design, diverse research methodologies, and effective teamwork, equipping us for future endeavors.