defining the HMW

How might we increase trust, community engagement and improve the overall borrowing process for current Quupe users?

Lack of trust is an issue that both new and existing borrowers face. It's normal as people want to borrow from someone who is nice, reliable, and familiar. At the same time, interacting with other users can foster a sense of community among the users.

Translating Needs and Wants

Through several rounds of design studio and paper prototyping, we came up with solutions to better facilitate Andrew's experience on the app.

WirefRames

Improved Borrowing Flow

ITErating

Getting User Feedback

We asked users (those who are familiar with the concept and those who has never heard of the app) to test the Invision Prototype. With the task to "look for a pair of skis that you might want to borrow" and read out their thinking process, we closely observe the testers' mental model.

Filters

🗣️ Feedback

During testing, 3 users pointed out that they wished there was more option to filter the result.

🤔Concerns

We have considered including other option such as new-ness or data available, however, talking with the developers it was impossible due to the technical and time constraint. We decided to look for other ways make the experience more seamless.

💡Solution

Instead of letting users click on the filter separately, we decided to the two into one. Additionally, letting them to pick which option they would like their results to be sort by.

Creating a consistent visual

Since my role is UX design, the wireframes were handed off to the other UI designers. The UI design was approved, but wanting to challenge myself as a holistic designer, I re-created the UI that aligned to my vision after the client proposal. In order to design consistently throughout the product, a visual guide was used and referenced. I took into consideration and closely followed the accessibility guideline - which includes to strengthen text by bolding, and ensure color contrast between the primary and secondary colors.

We had a lot of fun researching and designing for the app. However, we were not able to accomplish all the features within the span of three weeks. Below are some of the nice to have features that would have been helpful to both Quupe and the users, which includes:·      

• Sign-Up Process: require users to upload government IDs, photo verification to show proof.
• Onboarding: educate the users on the features and functions that Quupe provides
• Filter by date availability: since most of the items are still idle on the page, the likelihood of two borrowers wanting to borrow the same item is small. However, once Quupe scales up, such issue might arise.

Talk with the developers early on:
‍During the design, I was more focused on designing based on the user and business needs. Yet during the implementation phase, when the junior developers asked me about questions like: "What is the algorithm to determine if the category will appear on the popular page?", "What items are inside each category?". It was so easy to get caught on and not think about the technical feasibility of the app. For my next project, I would make sure to gather the technical requirement and work within the constraint and their capabilities, to save time and resources on our end.

‍Struggling with featuritus:  
‍Since the app is already on the app store, we struggled with trying to balance in keeping existing features and adding new features. Since we have such a short time frame, we were not able to research and validate the importance of some of the existing features, but we still wished to honour the original decision and kept them in the final design. For my next project, I would first assess the timeline and try to work within the scope!