“How can we improve the experience of buying and reselling furniture sustainably for young adults who are frequently moving to new places?”

Jump to Solution

The Context

Young people move around often due to school or work, and the moving process requires buying and selling furniture. During the process, they face several challenges such as transportation, carrying heavy objects, lack of time, the validity of the seller and the quality of the furniture.

So we collaborated with UW Surplus to help students buy and sell second-hand furniture achieving the following Goals:

Talking with customers, understand their needs

Survey

We collected feedback from 75 students and get some really insightful quantitative data that we later on used to guide our interview discussion

Customer Interview

We further explored the reason why students want to buy and sell second-hand furniture which leads us to a clear design requirement

Market Research

Potential opportunities:

  • Unclear pick up and delivery instructions

  • Low seller profile credibility 

  • Low communication efficiency 

  • Inconsistent furniture description

  • Unfriendly UI

What are the customer needs and pain points?

Buyer

Seller

How we can help address those pain points?

To document and visualize students' journey of selling furniture through UW Surplus, I created a storyboard that highlights key life scenarios shaping their motivations, uncovering pain points, and identifying needs throughout the process.

Stakeholder Interview - a tour at UW Surplus

We already know students buy furniture from UW Surplus but the selling rate at UW Surplus is significantly low. To validate our concept we visit UW Surplus and understand their workflow

Turn Concept into Digital Solutions

Map out user flow

With the conceptual framework in mind, we mapped out the user flow to address key decision-making points and streamline the digital process for buyers and sellers transacting furniture on UW Surplus Online.

Next, we transformed the user flow into an Information Architecture, forming the structural foundation of UW Surplus Online!

Building the website with the UX-Driven Foundation

In the wireframes, some of the key features are being outlined

The homepage directs users to dedicated buy and sell pages

For sellers, it provides clear instructions to help them list their furniture on UW Surplus.

For buyers and sellers, UW Surplus Online features updates on sales events and workshops, keeping them informed and engaged.

Next we created a mid-fidelity prototype to run a usability test with 4 participants

Try the prototype here

Continuous Improvement Based on User Feedback

…

We recruited 4 participants who are all graduated students to test the prototype and provide us their feedback and they encountered some challenges that are really valuable for us to improve the platform.

Reduce cognitive overload in the Checkout screen

It was confusing having interactive elements on the right, where users were expecting to view confirmations. This is one of the key tasks for shoppers so we needed to simplify and streamline the checkout experience.

Home page

Sellers process of uploading furniture information and receiving quote from UW Surplus online

High-fidelity Prototype

Our high-fidelity prototype, refined through usability testing, incorporates an optimized service flow for sellers and a streamlined purchasing process for buyers.

Future Steps

Due to time constraints, we were only able to focus on designing the customer facing interface.

Here is a service diagram outlining potential backend processes based on our discussions with UW Surplus. Several operational ideas emerged to enhance efficiency, reduce staff costs, and optimize storage usage:

  • Advertise job opportunities on the homepage to encourage students to join UW Surplus in operational and workshop roles.

  • Offer self-service options, such as campus trolleys, toolkits, and furniture repair workshops, to promote a sustainable furniture community.