Case Study: Design a mobile app that allows users to easily buy and sell used books.

A Detailed solution of how to approach a problem, define requirements and design prototype.

Problem Statement-

Design a mobile app that allows users to easily buy and sell used books.

Expected approach:

1. Define facts like what is the scope of the app, who would be the audience etc. If you are not certain of some facts, you’ll need to make a few assumptions on your own and make a solution accordingly.
2. Break down the problem into parts (Define the different types of users, what actions can a user take and what this would result in).
3. Think of an end to end solution for different kinds of possible users for this app. Think about what elements you think should be there on any given app screen and what would be the user journey.
   Hint: You may use a pencil and paper to make app screens (Wireframing) & to make user flows.

Expected output:

1. Documenting the problem & a well thought through detailed solution (assumptions, facts, and your thought process)
2. Screens & Information architecture (What options will be shown where, how will one screen be linked to the other)
3. User flows for different scenarios and user types

Solution-

By understanding the problem definition, expected output and areas of evaluation, I have structured my approach in:

Emphasize

• User- research interviews
• Affinity mapping
• Defining Personas

Competitive research

• Competitive research

Define

• Define Target audience
• Define Business model

Ideate

• User journey and designing of application.

Validation

• Wireframes
• Metrics
• Future scope

Step 1- Empathize

Behind every product there is a ‘Why- A Reason’ that leads to the birth of the idea to build a product and what functionalities a product should have. In order to do requirement gathering for a product, I first approached to understand the target audience and their pain-points. I divided this process in 4 steps-

User- research interviews

To start the process I interviewed some Family members, coworkers, classmates, friends, and fellow bibliophiles. Interviewing them allowed me to notice some important patterns concerning the research and disposal of books after their utilization. These patterns gave me the information I needed to proceed to the next phase of the UX research. I asked them some basic questions as-

• What is the one thing that matters the most while buying a book? — Genre/Author/Quality ( To understand the categories/filters which mobile application should offer.)
• What is the process of searching for a new book? ( To understand the categories/filters which mobile application should offer.)
• What do you generally do when you are done with a book?( To understand user’s mindset)
• If offered a platform to sell/buy used books, what things would you like that platform to have?(To understand user’s requirements)
• What are alternatives you look for rather than buying a new book?( To understand various options that user goes through)
• What are the places/ways you reach out in search of a book?( To understand various options that user goes through)
• What are the things you hate and love in the process of buying/selling books?( To understand user pain points)
• How often do you buy a book? ( To understand product market size)
• If offered such a platform, would you like to use it? ( To understand product market fit)

Doing the user research, I got to know the user’s approach, expectations, concerns and pain points which helped me define functionalities and move towards my second step.

Affinity mapping

After talking to potential users and noting their answers, I wrote them down on post-its and grouped them in an affinity map which helped me pinpoint recurrent themes and issues. I selected the most recurrent themes or problems from the interviews to be the focal points of the mobile application.

What do you do when you want to buy a new book?

What do you do when you want to buy a new book?

Dividing the major categories with their reasons-

Buying new book from online store

Buying new book from online store

Buying used books from online store

Buying used books from online store

Buying new book from store

Buying used books from store

Searching for free copies/eBooks

Borrowing it from friend/library

What are things you look/part of the process for while buying a book?

What do you do with your used books?

Selling books at a bookstore.

Selling it at online platforms.

Defining Personas

Step 2 — Competitive research:

In order to build any product, analyzing the competitive products is another most important aspect, learning the features they offer and filling their loopholes is part of the process. I went through certain products, will user the learning while defining requirements and creating mockups for application -

• OLX
• Books chor
• Bookscouter
• Show My Book
• Bookwise
• Quikr

Step 3- Define:

Define User — Types of user, their actions and functionality.

Talking to various users having different demographics and needs, I have listed down the addressable market details for the application.

Target audience-

• Students who are studying in school/college : Age group — ( 14–24)
• People preparing for competitive exams. : Age group — ( 18–28)
• People who love reading books. : Age group — ( 15–55) Keeping in mind constraint of using technology.
• Parents buying books for their child. Age group — ( 24–36)

Target areas- By keeping in mind market trade off model, user behaviour of region and availability of resources.

• Tier 1 cities
• Tier 2 cities.

User actions- By understanding consumer behaviour and scope of question given, listed below are the possible user actions.

• List books to sell.
• Search book to buy.
• Search by applying filters.
• Request about a particular book.
• Give a review about the listed seller.
• Post questions and reviews in general.
• Return and exchange request.
• Make payment with integrated payment options.
• Post feedback for application.
• Ask for help from the application.
• Contact support team.

Define Business model

After understanding User’s perspective, Affinity mapping, personas, doing competitive research I noted down the target audience and possible user actions that application would offer. Further I approached to decide the business model for application.

After understanding each model, their pros and cons and fulfilment requirements

Marketplace model-

• There will be availability of a wide range of books, customer and seller can directly connect with each other.
• Customers and sellers can decide by themselves and trade the deal.
• By user research, some customers would not prefer arranging the logistics by themselves due to constraint of time, personal choice and lack of security assurance.
• This model will have no inventory holding cost.
• Example — OLX

Inventory led model-

• There will be a quality check and seamless delivery system.
• This model will be useful to the category of people who do not want to include in trading delivery or talking with buyers/sellers.
• The cost margin increases as the cost of warehouse, logistics and maintaining the resources will be included.
• By user research, most people feel they can trade directly and save money on delivery.
• Example — Amazon.

After understanding both the models thoroughly and their practical working examples, I have decided to go for a Hybrid model for our application.

What will our Hybrid model offer?

• Buyer can directly contact the seller and talk with the seller.
• Buyer and seller will be able to communicate and trade the deal with their convenience.
• Listings will show the distance of how far the seller is located, Eg — I search ‘Sapiens’ then it will show me various options that are listed by sellers with the distance of how far they are from me. Arranged from ascending to descending order.
• Buyer and seller will have the option to opt for “Contacting platform to arrange pickup and delivery”. This option can be used when buyer and seller have problems meeting each other directly and by providing this option we can contact delivery partners and arrange their pickup-drop-off.
• By providing this option retention rate of users will decrease, only users who opt for this option will have to pay a charge for pick-up delivery.
• Users who can by themselves deal have options to trade deal and will not opt for this option.
• By providing the hybrid model, we certainly save our warehouse expenses of ware-house and also take care of user experience.
• This will build the system of transparency and users will have independence of choosing their convenience.

How will this work?

• We as a platform just have to partner with a logistics firm and we can place orders when we receive a request from a customer.
• We can ask customer for pickup and drop address, ask user to complete delivery payment by linking any payment service(Paytym, UPI etc)
• Customers who do not opt for this option can directly complete their deal on our platform by communicating with each other.

How as a platform we can generate revenue?

• Google AdSense will be a major source to generate revenue.
• Google customized search option can be included and revenue can be generated.
• By partnering with a logistics firm, the platform can have a good deal then general people by offering good business and can generate revenue from margin.
• Platform can provide options to users to feature their post on top by charging and can generate revenue.

I have not explained any points in detail understanding the problem statement but while designing the application all these points are kept in mind.

Step 4- Ideate:

After doing user research, affinity mapping, creating personas, competitive research and defining business model, understanding and keeping all the points in mind I have noted down following pain points and user expectations -

Buyer’s side-

• Buyer will be able to buy used books easily.
• Buyer will be Able to find Cover photo and all relevant details about the used books like condition, publisher, edition, etc before buying.
• Buyer can communicate with the seller.
• Buyer can see how far the seller is in terms of kms.
• Buyer can post reviews about seller profiles.
• Buyer will be able to trade off deals with sellers.
• Buyer will be Able to get the book delivered to their footsteps.
• Buyer will be Able to find the books well segregated and arranged by genre on the app.

Seller’s Side:-

• Sellers will be Able to list the books hassle-free.
• Sellers will be Able to negotiate with the buyer on his/her terms.
• Sellers can talk to buyers and decide if they want to trade deals internally or opt for logistic service.
• Sellers can post reviews about buyer profiles.
• Sellers will be Able to sell the books without moving out of his/her home.

Delivery system:-

I have divided the delivery system into two cases.

• Case 1:- First delves into the part where buyer and seller want to contact personally and make a deal among themselves.
• Case 2:- Second, is where they make a deal and request for logistics service, and the logistic partner picks up the used book from the seller and delivers it to the buyer. (I have made two assumptions here. A. This service is available in only selected cities. B. I am not considering the app of the logistic partner here.)

After defining the pain points and delivery system of the application, lets understand buyer and seller end to end journey.

User flow for buyer-

As a buyer, I want to browse books and buy them in an easy way with minimal charges and reliable security assurance.

User flow for seller-

As a seller, I want to easily list my books and sell books making the most money and least inconvenience while selling.

Functionalities-

Home page

• On the home page, users will be able to see the list of book thumbnails.
• It will be sorted on the basis of nearest location of sellers.
• Once the user starts using the application, by reading the user preferred genre, the author of the home page will be customized keeping the nearest location factor primary.
• Users will have a notification icon where the user can see all notifications.
• User will have a chats option, on opening it the user can see all the chats.
• Users will have a search option on top.
• Users will have a menu option.
• Users will have the option to choose a category.

Book thumbnail

• The book thumbnail will display the cover photo of the book.
• It will display the name of the book.
• It will display the price listed by the seller.
• It will display the distance in terms of kms of the seller.(Application will by default take ask for location access permission while onboarding)

Search option

• Users will be able to search by writing book name, author name, genre of book.
• On writing the first 2 characters, the suggestion panel should be shown to the user.

Categories

• The user will have an option to apply to the category.
• Category options Eg — Fiction, Textbook, romantic novel, spiritual etc.
• The details of the category can be decided later.

Menu

• On clicking the menu option, user will get options

1. List books to sell
2. My account
3. My orders
4. My reviews
5. Contact Support
6. My selling's

List books to sell option

• User when clicks on the sell option, will have to give details of books as

1. Book photos (Min 2 — Max 10) Can select cover photo
2. ISBN
3. Book title
4. Author
5. Book condition — Option to select ( Low, average, Best)
6. Pages
7. Description
8. Original price
9. Selling price
10. Phone number
11. Any remarks

Contact seller

• Buyer when clicking on option to contact seller, buyer will be redirected to chat box of seller.
• Buyer can send a message to the seller regarding book inquiry.
• Buyer can only send at most 2 messages until the seller accepts the request of the buyer.

Request received

• Seller will get a message from the buyer with details regarding which book the buyer has inquired for.
• Sellers will have the option to accept or reject the request.
• If the seller accepts the request then the seller will be able to reply to the buyer.
• If the seller rejects the request, the seller will no longer be able to reply to the buyer.

Request logistics

• Once the buyer and seller have talked and have decided to request logistics from the platform they can click on the request logistics option.
• Either of them can request for this option and another entity will be asked for confirmation.
• Once confirmation is received then only requests will be accepted.
• Users will be asked the details of the book, seller address, buyer address, pickup time.
• Users will be asked to complete the payment. ( Not including payment gateway information, we can adopt any service as Razorpay, stripe etc )

Deal completed

• Buyer and seller will be asked for confirmation for marking the deal as completed.
• How was deal completed — Option 1 Requesting logistics Option 2 By yourself.
• This functionality will be important metrics for analyzing customer behavior.
• Once the mark is completed, the buyer and seller will get the option to write a review for another entity.

Step 5 — Validate

Wireframes-

After defining requirements, we will look at wireframes(Low fidelity) for application. I have used balsamiq for creating wireframes.

Onboarding process

Case — User is signing up for the first time.

Things kept in mind-

• User is not asked too much information while onboarding.
• User is given facility to signup with google(Can be implemented using Auth0)
• User is given a direct button linking to sign in.
• Users are given OTP facility in order to decrease the rates of retention reasoning due to wrong password, writing password, verification process.

Case— Sign in screen

Home page

Analyzing the home screen of many Ecommerce apps like Myntra, Amazon, OLX, Quickr as well as a few apps selling and buying used books( Bookchor, Bookwise, Showmybook, Book scouter). I narrowed down the objective of the user on the home screen to:-

• Visibility of the core feature:- Buy & Sell
• Chat button option to see all the chats with buyers and sellers.
• Thumbnails of books
• Able to find what he is looking for:- Search option
• Easily able to find the updates of his/her operations (i.e. buying and selling):- Notifications
• Able to find what more is there:- Menu option
• Able to see better content on the home page:- Category.

Menu

On clicking the menu user will have options as

For buyer

Buying process

If a request is approved by the seller then the user and seller can chat and trade the deal.

User will get a message notification if the seller accepts the request.

For seller

Selling process

Request Logistics

The request logistics option will be present inside the chat box.

Anyone entity who fills it will get notification of request received, while other entity will get notification to accept the request.

Once both parties accept they will get notification of request received by application.

Once a request is received by application, both buyer and seller will get payment invoice and details. The person who has filled the request will have to make the delivery charges.

Metrics

• New signups per day/month/quarterly.
• How many users are buying the books?
• How many users are selling the books?
• How many deals are getting completed?
• How many users are requesting logistic service?
• How many users are not returning back after signup is done.
• How many users are not using the application again after listing the books.

Future scope

• Give payment options end to end.
• Provide options of donate, rent and exchange.
• Return and exchange policy can be introduced.

Conclusion-

After analyzing the problem, taking the user’s view, defining requirements and creating mockups it was a brainstorming process. I have enjoyed each bit of it by learning, exploring and thinking in various perspectives. I have skipped some points as technical detailing, mockups of menu items due to constraint of time but have tried to explain my approach.