Case study: Flower delivery app
To complete the Google UX Design course, I was asked to complete a project of my choice and apply the theoretical concepts in this project. As a person who loves flowers, I choose the project “Design an application for the purchase and delivery flowers” in what follows you will find the process I followed to achieve this small project.
The project design process included several phases, including:
a. Emphasize with users, defining problems and user goals.
b. Create user journey maps.
c. Create a site map.
d. Create paper and digital wireframes.
e. Create high fidelity prototype.
f. Test “Insights & Recommendations”.
a. Emphasize with users, defining problems and user goals.
Starting with the first phase which is the most important in my opinion is to identify the users, understand their problems and identify their goals.
Considering that the project is not directed in a framework of the company I directed myself towards my relatives, my friends, and my family and ask them questions to have their returns on the project and to consider them as my users to be able to realize this project.
1. Target Users :
We have mainly two categories, the first is the consumers who will buy the flowers and the second is the florists who will display their flowers.
It should be noted that in this case of study I am more interested in the application that will target the first category of users.
So our users are: The people who are interested in this kind of application are flower lovers, people who offer flowers on special occasions and parties, we aim with this project to satisfy this category.
2. Interview questions:
To conduct my research phase I based myself on interviews with my users to understand them and identify their needs. Here is the list of questions I asked users:
a) How do you buy /order flowers to give as gifts?
b) How often do you order/buy flowers?
c) How long does it take you to buy/order flowers?
d) How do you choose the type of flowers to buy?
e) Would you prefer to order online through a mobile application?
f) If there will be a mobile application to buy/order, are you interested in having multiple options and categories?
g) What is the most important criterion for you to select the flowers?
h) Are you interested in subscriptions?
What’s the problem?
Through the various discussions I was able to identify the following problems:
Users do not have time to go to the store to ask for flowers.
People who usually ask for flowers by phone have always suffered from delays.
Sometimes some of the users have reported that to make a delivery they have to ask well in advance and sometimes they do not receive their requests.
3. Persona:
Based on my user research, I have created a persona that represented the ideal customer.
User stories :
- As a busy woman who works all day, I want to enjoy flowers without stopping at the florist after a hard day of work so I can browse the catalog on the app and see the details before ordering.
- As an office worker who needs flowers in events and business functions, I need to have flowers delivered by the deadlines so that I can focus my efforts on other more important tasks at work.
- As a busy woman who works all day, I want to order and pay online through the app so that I can enjoy flowers without moving to the florists.
- As a young girl who cares about quality, I want to evaluate florists and deliveries so I can give my opinion and see the opinions of others.
- As an office worker who takes care of details, I want to follow the progress of my order so I can check the details and its status without extra effort.
After defining our users, understanding their needs and objectives, it’s time to illustrate their behavior and their path in the application through journey maps.
b. Create user journey maps:
To illustrate the user’s behavior to identify how to improve our application, I used User journey maps.
To provide a great user experience I used the HMW method to come up with more innovative ideas that will serve our users.
c. Create a site map:
After having passed the stage of empathy with the users, the creation of user journey maps, and the use of the HMW method that will help us identify the main functionalities of our application, it is time to move on to the IA (Information Architecture) stage that will help us identify how the application will be structured afterward.
d. Create paper, digital wireframes :
The first version of the design was on paper to structure my ideas before going to the next step.
Based on the information gathered during the search process, I then identified elements that would help the user navigate the app quickly and efficiently to find the perfect gift in the least amount of time.
Paper wireframes:
Digital wireframes:
e. Create high fidelity prototype:
Color palette :
Theme #F386B3:
The pink to refer flowers.
Theme #95989A:
black variants such as gray are the most recommended for text colors.
Theme #FFFFFF:
To highlight the design elements.
Font :
Roboto
Used by Google with a great source of information including different recommendations about styles and sizes you should use.
Results:
Check the design prototype here.
After completing the prototype I go for testing with my final users I plan a guerilla testing with my users to identify the different key opportunities.
f. Future Considerations (Insights & Recommendations):
After testing the prototype with some users I received some feedback that I find quite important (that’s why I note them here), I will take into consideration this feedback to complete the prototype.
a) Bookmark option:
Insight: Some users have asked to add the favorites option to keep their favorite bouquets easily accessible and especially if they prefer a category they can buy or order it without going through the search step.
Recommendation: We should add a bookmark process.
b) Filters:
Insight: Users feel overwhelmed when they look for flowers.
Recommendation: Add filters according to price, availability, and colors to have more refined results according to their wishes and criteria.
c) Rating :
Insight: Many users care about quality and want to check the rating of the florists
Recommendation: Add the rate of the product and florist after receiving it and display the top-rated ones in the list of trends.
Challenges :
The research phase and the empathy with the users were too challenging for me, in a context of Algerian users we don’t have a culture of giving or buying flowers also since the project was an individual project I didn’t have the opportunity to launch surveys and see if what I’m doing is going to meet the needs or not, so limiting the circle of research by appealing to my relatives can falsify a bit the needs of the users.
Last words
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