GIFT ASSIST
THE PROBLEM
B2C
iOS App
Great gift giving is a delicate art and a skill most do not possess. Most gifts tend to miss the mark with the receiver and they can unfortunately turn quickly from a delightful surprise to a burden.
Gift givers need a way to give more desirable and personalized presents because some gifts tend to go unused and turn into clutter.
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Solo UX UI Designer
SCOPE & CONSTRAINTS
This project would only be taken to a final high fidelity prototype
USERS & AUDIENCES
Some people are experts at gift giving, others find this more challenging, especially when in a time crunch or when they don't know the person's interests as well as they wish they did.
These users often get frustrated and down on themselves when they can’t come up with something the receiver will love. At that point giving turns unpleasant, instead of bringing the joy it should.
This product is intended for those people.
RESEARCH
SECONDARY RESEARCH
While researching gift giving, most of the information I came across were expected but some things stood out and were very interesting:
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One of the top 3 predictors of a successful marriage was generosity
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Material purchases provide more frequent momentary happiness over time, whereas experiential purchases provide more intense momentary happiness on individual occasions
HOW PEOPLE REALLY OPERATE
PRIMARY RESEARCH
Constructed research plan
Sent out screener survey
Recruited
volunteers
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Interviewed 6 participants
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
NO COMPETITION, NO PROGRESS
When searching for companies targeting the same problem I came across the following apps evaluated each app using Nielsen Norman Group’s 10 Usability Heuristics for interface design to learn from their successes and areas for improvements.
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Giftgram
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Amazon Wishlist
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Gift Planner
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SYNTHESIZING RESEARCH
AFFINITY MAP
I distilled insights, observations and participant's quotes from the user interviews, then grouped similarities and saw patterns emerge.
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To better understand the user’s pain points, goals, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors I used information from the Affinity Map to create an Empathy Map
PERSONA
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Through an exercise using sticky notes to combine different attributes, I generated 7 different personas, and combined the strongest 3 into 1:
GIVING GISELLE
GOALS
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She wants her gifts to be meaningful
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She wants to make the receiver feel special
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She wants to give something the person will value and or use
PAIN POINTS
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She’s often frustrated when she can't think of something meaningful to give
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She also worries that her gift won't be liked
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She has a hard time finding a gift for someone she doesn’t know that well
HOW MIGHT WE?
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How might we make the process of selecting a gift easier rather than stressful?
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How might we inspire the giver when the giver doesn’t have any ideas on gifts?
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How might we help the giver choose a present and still keep it a surprise?
IDEATING
BRAINSTORMING
Utilizing the Mash-up techniqueI imagined what users would want, how information could be layout and what kind of features would that would be necessary for it.
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Committing those needs to a spreadsheet, it became difficult to really nail down on the MVP. I decided to focus on the meat and bones of the product: giving the user gift suggestions and keeping the user profiles minimal to start with. ​
SITE MAP
RED ROUTES
Round 1: Adding a friend
Round 2: Finding your friend a gift
USER TESTING
3 rounds of user testing were conducted, while integrating findings from each testing.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
TAKE AWAYS
After 3 rounds of user testing I realized that if users don't want to do something, they wont. Adding friend's "interests" is crucial to the app. Even after ideating and testing new solutions, some users still did not want to do it.
IF YOU CAN'T BEAT THEM, JOIN THEM
The simple solution was to allow users to skip this step and fill it out when they need it or just have that information shared to them by the contact.