Project documentation
Role
UX Designer
Responsibilities
User Research, Ideation and Prototyping
Duration
3 months
Business
Export As provides a one stop print-on-demand merchandising and e-commerce solution for artists, designers and content creators to sell their works, so that they can focus on their creativity. Their product line currently consists of t-shirts, hoodies and phone cases, with more on the way.
Summary
Export As is an early stage start-up, their way of communicating with clients are personal, through text messaging and email. As the business scales, they need a way to manage clients automatically, and enable clients to engage with Export As services without the aid of staff.
We developed a digital Product Builder that clients can use to create and manage their product line autonomously, streamlining the user onboarding experience, and increasing the capacity for new clients.
There is a lot of friction between Export As and its’ clients, it took a long time for clients to set up using the services that Export As provides. Each client needed a member of staff to provide the service and this was not efficient as the business grows, as there would either be a waitlist of clients to be onboarded, leading to a loss in potential sales and a bad user experience with the brand, or Export As needed to hire more employees to deal with the increasing number of clients, leading to higher labour costs.
I conducted user interviews and contextual inquiry with 5 clients to gain further insights into their pain points, and created an as-is scenario for the interaction between Export As and its’ clients. This enables me to pinpoint any potential opportunities.
After prioritization, the phase that had the most opportunity for improving the user experience was in the Planning phase. This was evident in the emotion section.
As-is Planning Flow
Zooming into the current design planning process for Export As clients, they send their designs to Export As through email, WhatsApp or Google Drive.
User Needs and Pain Points
After analysing some key takeaways from stakeholder feedback and observations about this user flow, I discovered the following major user needs and pain points:
Communication between clients and Export As staff depends on free time.
Clients aren’t able to visualise changes to their product immediately and without assistance of staff.
A lot of information are only obtained through word of mouth with staff.
Some clients like that they are able to physically visit the production site.
Clients aren’t able to monitor the performance of their products
End to end of onboarding process is not clear - what are the steps?
Design process can take anywhere from a week to 2 months depending on staff capacity and client responsiveness.
Persona Archetypes
According to user interviews, there are two different types of client personas who use Export As services. We had to keep these in mind to cater to both personas in our solution, displayed below as archetypes:
The Side Hustler
Behaviours:
Busy, has a lot of other things to tend to, this is a passive revenue stream. It doesn’t matter what the design is, as long as it earns money. Has a following on social media.
Goals:
Set up passive revenue stream that leverages their established following on social media.
Needs:
A way that takes the least amount of time to upload their design, choose and visualise the product. All optional decisions can be made for them.
The Artist
Behaviours:
Truly wants ownership of their design and products, perfectionist. Looking to gain recognition as an artist for their work.
Goals:
Want their artwork represented and shared as products.
Needs:
A way to visualise their designs on products and have control over all aspects of their products such as sizing, placement of their design and colours.
Problem Statement
From the findings, the following user needs statement was created:
Export As clients need a way to manage their own products autonomously, so that they have more control over their products, and free up time to work on their designs.
This can also benefit the business:
Export As needs a way to enable their clients to manage their own products autonomously, so that their staff have more capacity to work on other tasks, reducing labour costs for the business.
These needs statements acted as an anchor during the Ideation phase, so we were reminded of who we were designing for, and what problem needed solving.
Problem Statement
Export As clients need a way to manage their own products autonomously, so that they have more control over their products, and free up time to work on their designs.
Assumptions based on target audience
Before ideating, I listed out what assumptions we had about the users:
User is proficient in web-applications and familiar with graphical UI.
User’s first time creating their own product line and using this service.
User is not an expert in the product (eg textiles for t-shirts, materials for phone cases)
User has a design ready to upload
Brainstorming
During the ideation session, we generated a lot of ideas ranging from AR Mock-ups to Virtual Chatbots.
After considering feasibility, we settled on a digital “Product Builder”, which not only could act as an onboarding tool, but also a product management dashboard for the users, and could be implemented as an extension of the existing website.
The main devices that were a priority to design for were tablet computers and laptops, as these were the devices most commonly used by our interviewed users.
Heuristic Evaluation and Competitor Research
There were several Product Builders on the market which I examined:
Nike By You (NikeID)
Printify
From these Product Builders, I looked at what could be improved and where I could take inspiration from for our solution.
Checklist/milestone/progress bar for user expectation and orientation
Lo-fi viewport for accessibility
Vertical stack for “My Products” page for easier management and comparison
Product Details page to enter Name, Description and confirm variations
Obvious CTA for adding a new product
Information hierarchy when there’s a lot crammed into a card
Visual buttons instead of text (front, side, sleeve etc)
With this information, I then created a mid-fi wireframe to show the flow and visualise the pages:
I used Export As’ existing visual identity and branding to create a high-fidelity prototype. The goal was to create a prototype so that I could conduct further usability testing before shipping for development, therefore the following were proritized:
Button placement and UX writing for CTA
Information hierarchy especially for product pages
Product Builder interface
Ensuring form fields and areas needing user input were intuitive
User - More Control
Users now have direct creative control over their products, as opposed to communicating with Export As’ in-house designers.
Users can now visualise their designs on products and create mockups autonomously.
User - Efficiency
Previously, it took anywhere from a week to 2 months from a user being in contact with Export As and being able to sell their product.
Users now can use the Product Builder to complete the production process in 10 minutes if they have all materials ready, resulting in an efficiency increase of 99%.
Business - Labour Cost
For Export As, users now no longer need a member of staff to guide them through the product creation process, which increases their working capacity, leading to reduced labour costs.
Business - Client Capacity
Export As is now not limited by available staff for client onboarding capacity. The service can now be scaled to allow more new clients onboard.
Development
The project has been handed over to the Development team within Export As and I am currently working out feasibility issues and making changes accordingly.
Testing and Iteration
Further usability testing needs to be conducted and iterations need to be made according to the user feedback obtained, especially with the 2 different persona archetypes.
A building block within the Export As service
As shown in research, the onboarding phase is only a part of the whole service that Export As provides. Other areas that need to be streamlined are Store Creation, and a way for users to monitor the performance of their products.
Team of one
Working at a startup as the sole designer, I had to be proactive in doing the research, prototyping and testing.
Stakeholder Management
Although I was the sole designer, other stakeholders had a lot of input and suggestions that weren't based on data and research, and was only thought to be "cool to have". I had to learn to say no to some of these suggestions.
Accepting not all products would ship
At the time of writing this, the design has been handed over to the development team, but due to budget constraints, it has not been completed yet. I had to learn not to be attached to solutions and products.
