In a Blink
Role
UX Designer
Task
Create a website like Crunchbase specifically for e-commerce sellers
task given by our clients
Timeline
Feb 2024 - June 2024
Team
Sarah Liang, Janine Kong
Create a site that allows users to learn about e-commerce companies' stories, from their financials to their mission
what we created
Tools
Figma, Figjam, Adobe Creative Cloud
Some context...
Our clients were a company that works with e-commerce sellers. They wanted our help to create something that would be a sort of "Crunchbase for e-commerce sellers."
What
Starting this project we had a lot of questions: “What does a site like Crunchbase for e-commerce sellers look like? What does this mean? It feels vague and intangible.”
After chatting with our clients we knew they had a solution in mind, but as designers we had to figure out what the problem was.
A good design is irrelevant if no one has a reason to use it.
At our first meeting, our client gave us a list of websites to learn from. After looking through them we had one big question:
How are we going to be different?
So, we looked to UX Research to find an answer.
Who
We had 3 main audiences: the investor, the business owner, the public user
We had 2 big problems: How will we talk to users from each base? Do we know enough target users to get quality data?
short answer: no
While it was easy to have conversations and research our "public user" group, getting access to investors and business owners was a struggle. Fortunately, we were eventually able to connect with our client's friends and my family.
What do you do when you can't conveniently access users?
Competitive Analysis!
Why
So, we did a LOT of competitive analysis.
competitive analysis table
While we learned from companies with similar audiences and related goals, we also found what they are lacking.
It's difficult for users to find a company’s story & mission without having to go to a company’s website.
How might we make the process of becoming "obsessed" with a company more seamless?
The game plan: Give users a chance to connect with many companies in 1 place. Allow them to view e-commerce sellers’ mission, financials, and products in 1 convenient website.
How
We started with a huge list of ideas and then narrowed them down based on what the development team thought was possible
What we came out with was a feature list that tackled the main problem by solving the subproblems users were facing.
site map with proposed features
Bringing the vision to life
We began wireframing by hand before moving to Figma, using our competitive analysis discoveries to guide our process.
a view of our mid-fi Figma page
We prioritized making our layout familiar but unique.
Testing, testing, "123"
From our first round of testing, focused on purpose and layout, we found:
first round of testing findings
first round of testing findings
One of our biggest insights was business owners where concerned about confidentiality. We needed to figure out a way to seamlessly hide company financial information from public users while making sure it’s accessible for investors. Here’s what we came up with:
maintaining financial confidentiality
blurring confidential info while encouraging investors to log-in
After editing the layout and adding color, we started our second round of testing where we focused on user attention and interactivity.
second round of testing findings
Takeaways
This was the most unconventional design process I've experienced
1.
It’s okay to spend a lot of time researching a project. It will help you move through the second half of the design process very quickly
2.
When having discussions with your team, focus on the “why” rather than the “how” to keep discussions focused.
3.
Keep your development team in mind just as much as the user. It’ll make your team much more bonded.