Objective:
Design a product that would be of service to users on a community-wide basis and could be implemented on a scalable level rather than specifically to one location.
Solution: yard sale locator app
Yard sales are difficult to advertise and even more difficult to discover. In this app, people post when/where their Yard sale is happening & (roughly) what they’re selling. Users can see garage sales happening nearby or coming up & will get notified when they happen to be near one.
Final prototype showcasing 3 user flows.
Research
I started with preliminary research on what a yard sale is & why people love them.
Yard sales are local, family-friendly events where shoppers get cool items for cheap & the seller gets rid of something for some cash. It can be quite spontaneous & easy-going.
Problems I discovered with Yard Sales
I decided an app would be the best medium to solve these issues due to an app's widespread accessibility and its ability to communicate new information instantly, which would be needed for people to share yard sales in real time.
Competitive Analysis
There are already yard sale finding/posting services that exist, but they are not optimized products.
Gsalr.com
No way to contact event host.
No way to only look within a certain range.
Yard Sale Treasure Map
No visible indication if an event is happening now or not.
Overcomplicated side nav.
Facebook Marketplace
The service is meant for individual item sales, meaning many posts will not be considered a garage sale even when looking for one.
Doesn’t clarify what forms of payment are available at the garage sales.
User Personas
The three user personas are created based on three different problems that this product must solve. The three final user flows circle back to these three personas.
Solutions I discovered
Through my word map, competitive analysis, detailed use cases of 3 user personas and my problem-solving skills, I came up with the ideas to create a maps UI with local yard sales and their details where sellers can post photos and list items that they're selling, as well as the ability to notify users when they're in range of a yard sale and also have the ability to filter search for surprising items that you might stumble upon when yard saling.
Creation
I created a flow addressing how the app would go about solving the problem that each user persona faced, keeping in mind their other factors as well.
Inspiration
Airbnb maps UI
Airbnb’s Map UI page that includes a list view, categories with icons on the top menu, and the drag up for a new page.
Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky"
Generates random, spontaneous fun.
Inspires me to make a ‘surprise’ category to allow users to easily discover whacky items for sale nearby.
Pocket Plants earthy style
Ability to incorporate a brown/green color scheme that relates to the adventurous, easy-going, good weather style that I envisioned.
