The Challenge
"This dress is gorgeous! Where did she get it? I need to find out!"
But where? At The Hunt.
I'm an avid fashion follower, plowing through social media and blogs for hours for inspiration. Most of the time, items are unidentified, which makes its identification frustrating. That's why The Hunt's mission deeply resonated with me.
For the first months after launch, The Hunt saw some initial traction. However, the entire funnel was suffering: from low user acquisition, to low activation rate, low engagement, and low monetization. The Hunt reached out to correct these issues.
The project aimed to improve the overall user experience on the site and eliminate the main business constrains. We left the monetization rate out of the scope of work and focused on acquisition, activation rate and engagement.
User Research
The objective of the user research was to identify the Target User, uncover her motivations and understand her fashion behavior.
We used a wide range of methodologies, including snowball sampling, random selection, benchmarking, questionnaires and interviews.
Top Findings
USER HABITS
1. Shopping with friends is a social event.
2. Value and ask for fashion opinions to friends & family.
3. Biggest constraint to fashion activities: Time.
4. Laptop and Smartphones are the most popular devices to browse and buy fashion online.
5. Hardcore user: browses fashion 1-2 times/day, 2 hours on average, buy at least once a month.
6. Finding the exact desired item is not so important. Alternatives are ok.
7. Google is the first step to find items.
8. Favorite items to buy online are handbags, shoes and accessories.
9. If possible, users would buy cheaper versions of what they like.
10. Differences between countries: US buys more often online than the EU.
USER BEHAVIOR
The following findings of how users discover and buy fashion were organized around reading, browsing online, and shopping for fashion.
TARGET USER
Personas
After analyzing the user insights extracted from the research, I created 3 personas that include the most relevant findings and represent the key audience segments:
Competitive Landscape
I analyzed how The Hunt compared to its competitors. Given the limited time available, I focused on the New User Flow, Main Features, Virals & Social Integration, and Community.
Mental Model
The mental model was a key part of the design process.
I clustered users in affinity diagrams according to their answers. This unveiled behavioral patterns and unmet needs, which enabled me to brainstorm features for each group.
Social Model
I analyzed in this section the identity components present on The Hunt:
- Profile
- Presence
- Reputation
Profile
The Hunt is all about self-expression. Users post photos of fashion items they cannot find anywhere else and they also follow Hunts placed by other users. They give and receive gems and comment on pictures. Therefore, we believed that a Personal Profile was a fundamental feature for The Hunt.
Presence
The Hunt’s success is based on user activity: Hunts placed, Finds posted, Hunts followed, Gems found, comments, etc. We wanted users to feel that the website was dynamic, constantly evolving.
We decided to feed a constant stream of updated information. We thought that by providing continuous updated information, the users would feel connected to others and motivated to keep posting Hunts and Finds, interacting with other users.
Reputation
The Hunt measures its users’ reputation by the number of gems their Finds are given and the number of followers their Hunts have. Progression and reputation go hand in hand. It was vital to properly showcase the users’ rewards, achievements, and other progress indicators to keep them engaged and motivated.
Flow Redesign
I analyzed and redefined The Hunt's main flows to improve the user experience. See below some examples: "Start a Hunt", "Post a Find" and "Give a Gem".
"Start a Hunt" Flow
This map describes one of the main tasks on The Hunt: Start a hunt. The system analyzes first if the user is registered or not, and launches either the Sign In or Sign Up flows.
Then, the user uploads a picture an enters the item's information.
Finally, the system checks that all the mandatory fields are filled out and the picture meets the requirements.
"Post a Find" and "Give a Gem" Flows
This map describes two of the main tasks on The Hunt.
The typical use case for Posting a Find is a user browsing the homepage, seeing an item she recognizes, locating the item online, and posting a picture of the item, along with a link to the corresponding Hunt page.
When a user posts a Find, the Hunt’s owner receives a notification of a “new find”. The owner can then give a gem to the user who found the item.
Organizational Scheme
I categorized the site content and established the relationships between the different sections to improve user navigation on the site.This is the new site navigation proposed:
Scenarios
Using the initial research, I created two storyboards representing the most important user actions: Starting a Hunt and Posting a Find. Through these scenarios, I was able to show the context, user pain points and motivations, as well as the solution.
Paper Wireframes
I like to sketch on paper to generate quick ideas and concepts. This is a great way to explore different solutions and directions and get feedback from the team quickly.
In this case, I also added some of the main flows. I included three of the most important screens: home, profile, and hunt pages.
Mockups
High-fidelity mocks were not part of the scope of work but I did some visuals for the main screens to help their team envision the end result.
Mobile App
As part of the project, we proposed the creation of a mobile application to adapt to its audience’s habits. By being present not just at home but also during the shop experience, we believed it would build a stronger community.
Functionally, the application focused on the most essential tasks, without reproducing all the functionality. Here are some paper wireframes created, including the main flows.
Based on those sketches we also created some mockups:
Summary
We then revisited all the core flows to improve the experience, and always strived to convey our solutions easily, be it through schemes, wireframes, storyboards or mocks.
UX Redesign for an Online Fashion Community
The Hunt is a shopping and fashion community that helps users track down and purchase items they see in pictures across social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
I worked as user experience designer, with a front-end developer and a social behavior specialist. I defined the target user and created personas through contextual inquiries and interviews. I developed a mental model to cover user needs. I applied Interaction Design and Information Architecture through scenarios, use cases and content inventory. I created a new organizational scheme to improve the discovery experience and did the task analysis of critical flows. Finally, I built wireframes and mocks.
