Local Blooms
Role
UX Designer & Researcher
Project Duration
July 2021 - October 2021
The Product
A shopping app for a trendy and sustainable local florist, Local Blooms. The target users are Local Blooms' customers, who need a quick and easy way to order flowers.
Goal
Design an app that will be easy for customers to use to order floral arrangements. Users should be able to; easily and quickly place delivery and pickup orders, keep track of order information, remember to order flowers on time for important occasions.
Responsibilities
User research, empathy maps, personas, user journey maps, paper and digital wireframing, low fidelity and high fidelity prototyping, planning and conducting usability studies, iterating on designs.
User Research Summary
User research was conducted in the form of semi-structured interviews with individuals who had ordered flowers online at least once in the past year. Participants were recruited from my social circle. As this could lead to biased findings, I tried to interview a range of different types of users to reach users with a variety of perspectives and needs. Using my interview notes I created an affinity diagram, and identified 4 main user pain points. These pain points informed the design process.
Pain Points
Overwhelmed with Options
Users who do not know what flowers to send as a gift are overwhelmed by too many choices. They do not want to waste time looking at lots of options and need an easy way to pick a gift that is appropriate for their recipient and the occasion.
Out of Delivery Range
Users waste time picking out flowers, only to find their recipient is not in the delivery range. Designs will make sure users verify their recipient is in the delivery range before spending time picking an arrangement.
Late Delivery
Users forget to order flowers early enough for an on-time delivery for birthdays, holidays, etc. and rush delivery is unavailable or expensive. Designs will help users remember to order on time.
Customize Arrangements
Users waste time trying to find arrangements that meet all of their specific criteria. Users want to be able to customize arrangements, and are frustrated when orders are incorrect after they spent time customizing.
“I don’t really know much about flowers. I trust the florist more than myself to pick out something nice. ”
Goals
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Sending flowers on time to family for birthdays
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Picking a nice arrangement that his recipients will like
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Place order quickly and conveniently
Frustrations
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Not knowing what to choose
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Last minute delivery is expensive or unavailable
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Avoiding certain flowers is challenging
Dan is a young professional living in a city. He orders flowers online a few times a year for family members’ birthdays. Dan does not trust his own taste and likes to order based on florist suggestions when the option is available. He would prefer to order from a local florist.
Dan is busy with his demanding job and sometimes forgets about ordering a gift until it is too late to get flowers delivered on time. For this reason, he has ordered from a big international flower delivery company in the past for convenience and last minute delivery, but was disappointed in the quality of the floral arragements.
Persona: Dan
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Age: 30
Hometown: Seattle
Family: Single
Occupation: Software
Problem Statement
Dan is a last minute shopper who needs to quickly pick out and order flowers for loved ones' special occasions because he wants to show them he cares with an on time gift, but does not know what to buy and forgets to order early enough.
“I’m looking for stylish, unique, and high quality flowers. I like to support small local florists rather than big corporations.”
Goals
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Ordering high quality unique arrangements
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Deliveries will arrive on time and reach the recipient
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Customize floral arrangements
Frustrations
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Coordinating delivery directions and times
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Customization options not available or reliable
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Flowers do not look as nice as they do online
Julia is a 53 year old professional living in Seattle. She orders flowers for loved ones for graduations, birthdays, and holidays. She prefers shopping from local florists because she believes the arrangements are higher quality and more unique, and she likes to support small businesses.
Julia likes to customize her arrangements to make them perfect. It is disappointing when arrangements do not arrive as specified, and frustrating when deliveries are not made to the correct place for tricky addresses, such as her niece’s college dorm.
Persona: Julia
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Age: 53
Hometown: Seattle
Family: Adult children
Occupation: Real Estate
Problem Statement
Julia is a generous gift giver and perfectionist who needs a way to make sure her customized arrangements arrive as specified because her loved ones deserve the perfect gift delivered conveniently to their door.
User Journey Map
I created a user journey map of the main user flow – picking out and ordering flowers for delivery --- and identified opportunities to improve the user experience.
This is the user journey map for our persona, Dan.
Competitive Audit Report
Competitive Audit Goals
Compare the gift selecting and purchasing experiences of competitors’ mobile and web stores.
Key Competitors
Our key competitors are 1-800-FLOWERS, an international flower and gift delivery service, Terabella Flowers and Mercantile, a local florist and gift shop, and Fran’s Chocolates, a local chocolate company. 1-800-FLOWERS and Terabella are both direct competitors. Fran’s is an indirect competitor.
Type and Quality of Competitors' Products
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1-800-FLOWERS: The customer is paying for convenience over quality for these floral arrangements.
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Terabella Flowers and Mercantile: High quality floral arrangements at a higher price point.
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Fran’s Chocolates: High quality chocolates in premium looking packaging.
How Competitors Position Themselves in the Market
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1-800-FLOWERS position themselves as a convenient flower and gift delivery service for everyone.
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Terabella Flowers and Mercantile position themselves as a high quality local and environmentally friendly florist for the sustainably minded and mid to higher income consumer and businesses.
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Fran’s Chocolates position themselves a French-inspired high quality chocolatier with an elegant product. Their products are carried in their own stores as well as higher end grocers and online.
How Competitors Talk About Themselves
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1-800-FLOWERS advertise their company as a convenient one stop shop for gifts that can be delivered quickly anywhere in the world.
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Terabella Flowers and Mercantile talk about themselves as a caring local business with environmentally friendly practices. When ordering from this business, the user feels good about themselves and the product. Products come across as local and high quality.
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Fran’s Chocolates convey their business as a high quality chocolatier, providing an elegant feeling experience and product.
Competitors' Strengths
1-800-FLOWERS:
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International and same-day delivery
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Large, medium, and small arrangement sizes represented in pictures
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Soonest delivery date displayed on product image
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Excellent gift finding feature
Terabella Flowers and Mercantile:
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High quality and artistic product photos
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Local and environmentally friendly
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Simple and aesthetically pleasing website
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Easy navigation
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Range of gift options, but not too many to choose from
Fran’s Chocolates:
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Strong brand identity
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High quality product
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Elegant feeling online shopping experience
Competitors' Weaknesses
1-800-FLOWERS:
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Overwhelming amount of product choices
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Busy website design
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Product photos mislead users to make arrangements look bigger
Terabella Flowers and Mercantile:
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No quick-view feature
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Copy is too wordy and long
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Different sized floral arrangements not represented visually
Fran’s Chocolates:
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Text is low contrast and too small on mobile
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No quick-view feature
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Navigating to non-product pages is challenging
Gaps
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Neither Terabella nor Fran’s have an address book feature, same day delivery, a gift finding feature, or clearly displayed delivery dates.
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None of the companies have an online rewards program
Opportunities
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Reminders to purchase gifts for recurring annual events that users have purchased for before.
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Reminders for when an order needs to be placed by and clearly visible available delivery dates when browsing.
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Rewards program
Paper Wireframes
I created multiple paper wireframes for each screen of the primary user flow. I reviewed my wireframes and picked the best elements from the different versions of each screen, to create a final set of paper wireframes.
Digital Wireframes
Next I created a set of digital wireframes based on my paper wireframes, using Figma.
The Gift Finder tool will help users quickly find a gift based on the occasion and their recipient, to address the pain point of users being overwhelmed by options.
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Digital Wireframes
The app will have an address book with saved important dates, such as the recipients birthday or anniversary. This will help help users keep track of when they need to order a gift by, to make sure floral arrangements arrive on time for special occasions.
Low Fidelity Prototype
Try out the prototype on Figma
This is the main user flow for the first iteration of the low-fidelity prototype. Users start on the main page, go to the gift finder, select a floral arrangement, add it to their cart, checkout and get order confirmation, then can view their order details/progress.
Usability Studies
I conducted two moderated usability studies. First I conducted a study with a low fidelity prototype. Based on my findings I iterated on the designs, and added in UI elements. Then I conducted a second usability study with a high fidelity prototype, and used those findings to iterate on my designs one more time.
Study 1: Findings
Most users were not confident they would get sufficient confirmation of their order.
Most users felt there were too many fields to fill out on the gift finder.
Some users thought ‘checkout’ meant they were submitting the order.
Some users were confused about adding an item to the cart.
Some users were unsure about the 'address book' function/usefulness.
Study 2: Findings
Some users were overwhelmed by the number of fields to fill out on the gift finder.
Some users felt the delivery/pickup option was hidden under the ‘add to cart’ button.
Some users want infinite scroll instead of a ‘show more’ button for gift finder results, to save time.
Mockups
The results of the first usability study showed that users were confused by the “Check Out” button, and were unsure if it meant they were submitting their order.
"Check Out" was changed to “Proceed to Checkout” in the mockup, and a summary of the checkout process is shown on the top of the screen.
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Mockups
In the first usability study, users felt there were too many fields in the gift finder. I reduced the number from 6 to 4 fields.
In the second usability study I found that users still felt there were too many fields in the gift finder to make using it feel quick and easy. I reduced the number of fields to fill out from 4 to 2, and put the additional options under the ‘Advanced Options’ button.
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Mockups
Accessibility Considerations
The colors meet contrast standards for accessibility, so that users with low vision are able to use the app, and all users can use the app in bright environments, such as outdoors on a sunny day.
Designs will be compatible with a screen reader.
Concise but descriptive alt text will be provided for all item images. Every item has a written description section on the 'Item Details' page.
Takeaways
Impact
“This very much looks like apps that I’m used to and have seen before, so it was pretty easy to use”
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Participant, Hi-Fi Usability Study
What I learned
This project helped me learn how to design a consumer shopping app, taking into consideration the user experiences of product discovery, the checkout process, and following up on order details.
Next Steps
First I would present my usability study results along with my updated mockups, and pass my designs along to the engineering team.
After the app was live and being used by the florist’s customers, I would collect feedback from customers on their experience with the app.
I would take the user feedback and iterate on my designs again.