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Project Background
Conceptual Case Study
(Google UX Design Certificate)
Duration
3 months
The Company
The client is a start-up that wants to introduces the novel concept of ordering flowers with personalization options through an app. How might we make eFlower the go-to solution for a delightful flower delivery experience?
Roles
User Experience Design | User Research | Brand Design | Information Architecture | Product Management
The floral industry is booming in 2022, with its predicted value in the States alone being $5 billion. Floral industry statistics indicate that customers are motivated by purchasing flowers due to seasonal, event-based, and hobby related reasons. However, flower shops in various regions find a discrepancy between user feedback and the actual sale of flowers. Although customer attitudes remain positive, stores began to see that they were not meeting their predicted quotas.
How do we know when our solutions are impactful? KPIs (Key performance indicators) are defined to quantitatively measure performance regarding business goals.
For example, the KPI for eFlower may be defined as:
1. The company generating an annual revenue of $45 000.
2. Reducing the cart abandonment rate by 3% within 6 months.
3. App retention rates that are over 70% in the first 3 months of release.
4. Increasing check-out rates within 3 months by 4%.
20 participants were interviewed and given surveys to pin-point consumer attitudes and behaviours.
Ethnographic studies pertaining to which regions floriculture is the most prominent had also been conducted.
Using this research, the solution will first be introduced to the regions that have the highest rate of purchasing flowers to boost conversion rates. In addition, secondary research had been conducted to understand how much users are willing to pay for flowers (dependent on number of flowers and events).
Interview Questions
1. When was the last time you purchased flowers and how often do you purchase them? On a regular basis?
2. What would you be willing to pay for flowers? Is this dependent on occasion?
3. Is it ever frustrating to buy flowers for an occasion? Why?
4. What was the reason for your last floral purchase?
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Summary of Feedback
"I don't really have time to go by a flower shop to buy flowers. It's easier to just buy a present without it." - Interviewee response
"I don't know what to pick so I just pick cheapest option that looks decent." - Interviewee response
"Flowers are kind of expensive. I don't buy them unless it's a special occasion." - Interviewee response
Users often cite a lack of time for not buying flowers, concern for the price of the products, and indecisiveness upon seeing many options in a store.
Shops that had been advertising the sale of flowers online had often been listing their newest products first, instead of placing products with the most popular price range (or within the range of what users would buy) on the front page to increase sales.
3 user personas are formulated from user research through the interview questions above and additional surveys.
From interviews, archetypes are established to inform the goals, characteristics, and needs of the demographic that are interested in buying flowers.
There are various scenarios in which users buy flowers, and each will be represented by a persona.
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Principles were defined as guidelines and offer constraints in order to allow creative solutions to be created to meet user needs.
Affinity mapping aids in organizing data from user interviews into broader epics.
Each point in the affinity diagram are prioritized by order of importance (from 1-5) using 3 variables to be prioritized by the criticality framework:
Critcality * Impact * Frequency = Severity
Criticality is defined as the importance of the task to the user.
Impact is defined as the impact it has on the user completing the task.
Frequency is defined as the number of times the point is brought up amongst the participants.
Features to be prioritized and implemented in the solution will be drawn from the points with the highest severity score.
Framework cited from Gloria Lo
User Journey
A user journey maps out the path a user takes to make a purchase.
User touch points are addressed to understand each step of the conversion lifecycle and provides clarity into what problems may block usability at each point of the customer journey. The user needs, emotions, and opportunities for improvement were categorised into broader epics in order to begin to create solutions for each problem.
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”Most users spend their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.”
- Jakob Nielsen
Services that offer online ordering and delivery of flowers already exist on the market.
These apps range from local stores that deliver flowers to large e-commerce platforms like Amazon that have independent, 3rd party sellers that create sales through their platform.
A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis had been conducted to understand the difference between these platforms.
Several commonalities are found between users form key insights to provide a foundation for defining features that will be included in the mobile app.
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The study took into consideration factors like seasonal purchases and the types of flowers purchased.
Addressing Insights
The insights above are addressed with the following solutions below.
1. The confirmation page on check-out shows live tracking information.
2. The time of delivery should be surfaced from product page to check-out.
3. Gift options should be immediately apparent on the product page.
4. Include the most popular reasons to purchase flowers as tags on the home page.
5. Positive user reviews should be surfaced, as well as region-specific warehouses to increase trust.
6. Increase the possibility that suggestions surfaced on the home page meets user needs to prevent indecisiveness.
A mobile application was chosen for the first release of the application due to portability and the size of a screen. Limiting product options due to a mobile's screen size reduces a user's cognitive load when deciding what to purchase, especially when users quickly see a suitable recommendation on the landing page.
The portability of a mobile phone will aid users in being able to order flowers at their convenience.
The happy path was defined for users as the optimal end-to-end experience. For eFlower, this is defined as the process of signing up for the app to successfully checking out a product.
The information architecture of the app was designed to accomodate the happy path.
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Low fidelity prototypes were first created on paper using the Crazy 8s method. Then, transferred onto Figma and improved upon iteratively to define the screens.
High fidelity prototypes are finalized from a series of iterations using Figma. An interactive prototype that emulates user flow is then developed to understand usability at a greater level of granularity.
Each feature below addresses the insights discovered to rectify user pain points.
Impactful outcomes are achieved through an iterative approach by testing and implementing features that have a greater task completion rate (from product page to checkout), or a greater number of votes (in an A/B test).
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An integrated points system that would for users had also been considered to boost sales after a user’s initial purchase.
The points system would allow users to gain points after purchasing flowers once, and set them up to receive free flowers after a certain number of purchases.
This was de-prioritized for the MVP due to the complexity of creating a points system that was dependent on product price and type, and the lack of interest seen in user interviews by users.
After inspecting the first iteration of high fidelity prototypes, the UI was redesigned in order to simplify the interface.
As the decision to check out a product is behavioural, users were then gauged using A/B testing for the redesign.
90% of participants remarked that they would be more likely to add an item to the cart due to seeing the arrival date immediately on the product page.
This makes a significant impact on add-to-cart rates.
A style guide had also been created to maintain consistency in the UI.
Cross compatibility with different platforms (iOS and Android) has also been implemented.
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Takeaways
1. Users prioritize convenience when using a novel service
2. Users are willing to pay more (30%) for a product perceived to be of high quality and arrives a few days faster (2-3 avg. days)
3. Users are indifferent to an integrated point system for discounts, and are more concerned about a single order of flowers arriving on time.
Outcomes
1. 90% of participants said that they would use the app over going to a shop to buy flowers due to trusting in the tracking capabilities
2. 90% of participants found it easy to navigate from the cart to checkout confirmation.
3. 75% of participants responded positively when asked about whether they trust in the quality of the flowers due to user reviews.
Upon reflection, the user insights gathered from the first iteration brings up a few ideas for improvement.
The implementation of a personalized gift wrapping option for products might be a feature that would be worth investing in since users showed enthusiasm about the gift-giving option.
To expand on the growing e-commerce trend, a compatible web application could also be created. Users showed a particular interest in supporting local shops. Integrating the idea of allowing local shops to create a "shop" account on the application may be mutually beneficial for the company and shops.
Overall, the project was a great success. An end-to-end experience for ordering flowers had been created based upon user needs and pain points and successfully addressed the problems of indecision, convenience, and budget constraints.
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