Overview
GM10 is an online community marketplace platform specifically designed for trading cards. A place for collectors to connect with others around the world, participate in live streams, and empower them to choose which company grades their collections if they made a business out of their passion they can establish a custom storefront to sell their products.
Role
Project role: Product Designer
Responsibilities: Product Strategy, User Research, Interaction, Visual design, Prototyping & Testing, Information Architecture, Events
Duration: August 2022 - September 2022
The Background
Given my desire to put the lessons I learned from my online courses into action, I decided to partner with my good friend who decided to start his online trading card platform. The sudden influx of vendors, sellers, buyers, and traders in New York due to the pandemic, inspired us to design an app that would provide a platform for users to connect and conduct business more easily.
The Challenge
Design a mobile application that will give users a platform to sell, trade, communicate and market their products to users in a more simple and direct way. At the same time, the application should help users explore more options and navigate a market catered to them individually
My Role
I led the design process by working hands-on throughout the entire process, starting from conceptualization until the creation of the prototype. the majority of this project was completed virtually, so it was great practice for me to understand how to communicate with potential stakeholders
Project Goals
To create an avenue for online users around the world to sell, trade, and buy products.
To create a simpler and more direct means of searching, Grading, purchasing, and receiving products for users.
To promote the trading card Environment to specific users to cater to their individual wants, as well as their location and personal goals.
Research
Research
As we searched and asked around for apps frequently used by buyers and sellers, we found out that there were three main flat forms that attract the most foot traffic centered on Card Selling. — Facebook market, eBay, Macari Inc. We then analyzed the different features each platform brings for both buyers and sellers. This information would later help us identify key features to add to our application.
Competitive Analysis
Understanding the User
I spent most of my time at card conventions and trading shows where buyers, sellers, and enthusiasts spend their time and money. To further understand the highs and lows of the experience for sellers and buyers and enthusiasts, we conducted a survey. The survey was a mix of both quantitative and qualitative questions to allow us to get an insight into the user’s demographics, use of technology, and experience with buying or selling trading cards.
We also used the survey to determine the number of customers each seller has in a week, the common payment methods used, the common platforms used to sell products and the rankings of different factors that affect their choice of platform. We learned that sellers use Facebook Market and eBay the most to market and sell their products, with popularity and method of communication leading to the factors that affect their choices.
We created one empathy map for the sellers and one empathy map for the buyers to allow us to focus on one target audience at a time. The empathy maps were made by analyzing the answers of the different survey participants and interviewees. The answers were then separated and sorted into what the user sees, hears, says, does, thinks, and feels, together with the pains and gains of the user while shopping and selling online.
The survey also helped us determine users’ frequency of buying products online, the platforms he or she uses, and the different factors that affect their choice of platform.eBay is the most used platform for buying and selling. While popularity was the most important factor in choosing a platform for the sellers, the results showed that market saturation was the most important factor for the buyers and sellers.
Persona’s
We were able to create 2 personas based on the empathy maps we created for both buyers and sellers. The empathy maps allowed us to create short persona biographies, give them goals and frustrations, and understand their wants and needs when buying and selling online. We made one buyer persona and one seller persona to give us different insights from 2 groups of possible users.
How Can We….
We were able to find common frustrations and pain points from the users after carefully analyzing the empathy maps and the personas. These problems helped us in developing “how-might-we” questions — questions we ask ourselves to identify ways to solve the users’ problems.
For example, one key frustration we were able to find from the buyer was the difficulty he or she faces when keeping track of orders. This led us to formulate the question, “How can we help the buyer keep track of his or her orders?” From this question, we were able to come up with two different solutions. First, the buyer should be notified with an alert that announces a “delivery today” or “delivery tomorrow.” Second, the buyer should be able to see his or her pending deliveries in one section of the application. Implementing the “ How Can We” Mindset pushed me to create simple and smooth designs that I know would make life simple for future GM-10 users.
User Flow
The biggest challenge we encountered while making the user flow was identifying what options should be present on the navigation bar. We identified the home option as a non-negotiable component of the navigation bar. The team went back to the personas and empathy maps to review what the most important features are to the users, and from there, we were able to determine that messaging and notifications were crucial to the navigation. We also decided to add a menu option, similar to that of Netflix and Facebook. This would allow the user to navigate the app more freely. Since we also decided to make the swipe feature one of the main gimmicks of the app, we added the “swipe mode” option to the navigation bar to give users easier access to the feature.
WireFrames
The impulsive side of me wanted to go straight to designing screens. Perhaps the old me would’ve done that. Thanks to the different online courses I took prior to this case study, I understood that wireframes were essential to get an idea of how I wanted the app’s layout to look. This saves me from the hassle of changing designs every now and then. I used different Figma tools and shapes to build the layout and structure of the application. Every shape and text followed an 8pt grid to keep the elements organized and structured properly.
Hi-FI Prototype
Designing the screens was the most enjoyable part of the case study. Having wireframes to work with made it so much easier since I only had to focus on the design of the screens rather than thinking of the design and the layout at the same time. From user pain points, surveys, and interviews I was able to create features and designs that represented solutions to problems that have been lingering for some time.
Our goal is to have the best filtering and sorting system for a marketplace for trading cards. with a dynamic filtering system, users should see a quicker roll-out of different targeted cards and breaks that they couldn’t see before on other platforms.
The shop’s menu offers availability to connect with other brands and shop profiles that are linked to user’s personal profiles. Personal profiles can be shared over multiple accounts and over different platforms. we want brands that are in the industry to be able to sell their products and custom trading cards
Community allows users to share anything they want and connect via post or chat group groups. the whole purpose I to create a lot of foot traffic on the community page so that users can feel comfortable with the features and capabilities within the app.
The End Game
The End Game
I’m overall satisfied with how this case study worked out. We were able to accomplish most of the goals we set in a short span of time and I, personally, learned a lot from the experience. Setting a strict schedule for this case study together with my job, my online courses, and other factors helped me finish the case study in the time frame we set.
What I Learned
I learned a lot from the process and the experience. Here are the most important things I learned:
Be specific with your problem. We often think we know what we want to solve, but research and surveys will help us understand that there are a lot of aspects to a certain problem.
Research is key. Before starting the surveys and interviews, I initially thought that I knew what I wanted for my users. I knew what problems to solve and I knew what things to focus on. Conducting surveys and analyzing their answers reminded me that I am not my user. I may use the product, but I don’t know what others really want. I also got perspectives on how buyers and sellers currently work around different problems and challenges. Interviews are also important because they let you see problems the users don’t think they have.
Personas are important! While taking my online courses, I learned that most people skip persona-making because it’s a “waste of time” and making fictional characters won’t help. Experiencing it firsthand made me see that understanding the users and solving their problems becomes way easier once we have a persona to work with.
MAKE. WIREFRAMES. Don’t skip it. Designing becomes easier. Seeing the “undone-ness” of low-fidelity prototypes prevents you from thinking that a layout and design is final, thus giving you more freedom to make changes.
Understanding the user is always at the core of a project. All my online courses would talk about user-centered design and how every decision should be based on research. This case study allowed me to see those concepts in action.