Purchase Planner App

Class Project

Date: Sept.-Nov. 2017

Scope: User Research, Ideation, Wireframing, Balsamiq Prototyping, Sketch App, Usability Testing, Hueristics Evaluation

Challenge

As millennials start to gain more purchasing power, they need a way to make better purchasing decisions. Based on 30-minute interviews with 9 different participants, we discovered several opportunities with the process of making large purchases. Users needed a better way to collaborate, manage finances, compare options, and receive alerts.

Approach

As a team, we were tasked with conducting research, ideation sessions, prototyping, and testing an app to assist with large purchases. I developed an interviewing strategy that helped uncover the insight of the need for collaboration. I designed the wireframes for the collaboration and comparison features. I then took those features back to users for user feedback and iterated on another version.

After the project ended, I decided to create a high-fidelity mockup and address some of the feature integration issues from our testing as well as the visual design. Later tests showed users felt the features would be useful. The usability of the final mockup was much more intuitive and users were able to navigate through the application with ease.

Persona

Through our user interviews, we developed a persona that reflects the ideal user of this application. Many millennials are making their first large purchase and prefer the accessibility of mobile.

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Early wireframes using Balsamiq allowed us to quickly layout features and test with users before investing further time into the design.

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Wireframes

Using Balsamiq, we tacked features for different components of the app that addressed the different needs. The wireframe was used to test usability and collect feedback from users.

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Using the Sketch App, I designed high-fidelity mockups of the UI, integrating the features from the last iteration.

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Users can compare options. The screen shows the use cases for ranking options, looking at important details, and comparing options.

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User can collaborate. The screens demonstrate the chat feature and ability to share options.

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Secondary tasks required for using the app such as adding friends, selecting account integration, and managing financing.

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