The research behind the design of an app that helps online resellers to create listings 3x times faster
My journey with Venato started two weeks before a very important Pre-IC pitch. The CEO and the CTO needed a UI/UX Designer who could’ve transformed their ideas into a concrete project, to be presented to the investment committee.
With still no concepts in mind, I had to run against the time for delivering a working prototype in two weeks. So, here’s what I did.
DISCOVERING AND BREAKING DOWN VENATO
Going through the initial market research for understanding online resellers needs and pain points
Despite knowing that the full project was still an idea, I knew that I wasn’t starting from scratch. The CEO and the CTO had conducted some research in the initial stages of the project and gathered some insightful feedback.
So, I started by gathering the results of this research and the opinions they collected, in order to understand:
· The pain points of the users
· The key features that they would’ve liked to see in Venato
Huddling with the CEO and the CTO, for understanding their vision
For breaking down even more every single part of the project, I also had some 1:1 huddle session with both the CEO and the CTO. This helped me to better understand their visions, and the key features they wanted to incorporate in the platform, which were:
1. A feature that helps users to upload new items in the app
2. A portfolio, where users can keep track of their items and monitor its value during the time
3. A cross-listing feature, which helps users to sell an item on multiple marketplaces
WORKING ON THE MAIN FEATURES
The information I gathered in the first stage helped me to define the most important tasks to focus on and to speed up the workflow,for delivering the final prototype within the established deadline.
A competitor analysis for understanding recurring patterns and how they incorporate these features in their platforms
At this stage of the workflow, I decided to conduct further research, this time among competitors, and other services that offered features, which were like the ones I would’ve designed for Venato (i.e. the portfolio feature, where keeping track of the items and their value over time).
User flows for defining the steps to incorporate in the features
After gathered the insights of the competitor analysis, I started to define the user flows, of the features I was working on.This helped me to understand which steps I should’ve incorporated into the flows and which scenarios consider.
Testing ideas and turning them into designs
I then turned all my insights and thoughts into sketches and low-fidelity wireframes. Every time I designed something new, I made sure to take some time to meet with the CEO and the CTO and to present them my solutions. These meetings helped me to test different solutions and to align with their visions.
AB Testing, for evaluating different options
As soon as a design was approved, I started to turn the wireframes into high-fidelity screens and to work on the prototypes. And whenever we had some conflicting feedback about two solutions, I also designed and prototyped the two different versions, in order to run some A/B tests, which have helped the team to solve these conflicts and pick a final solution.
THE FINAL LAP
One last huddle with the CTO, for refining the last details
The Pre-IC pitch was approaching and the prototype were at a good point. I just needed to meet one last time with the CTO, to align with his speech and refine the last details of the prototype.
We discussed about which were the last updates that needed to be made, and, after gathering his feedback, I have worked on the final version of the prototype. This was the ultimate version, that was presented in the Pre-IC and helped Venato to advance to the next stage of the funding process.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end well, as, after the final IC meeting, the investors decided to not fund the project.
So, at least for now, Venato didn’t have the chance to release its initial version of the platform on the market, for keep testing it and tracking the metrics we would’ve liked to track:
· Conversions
· User retention, for which we also defined a gamification system in app, for retain the user even more time and increase the engagement
· Time on task, specially because the goal of Venato was to help online resellers to save time when creating new listings
· Task success rate, in particular for those tasks were Venato AI was integrated, like the upload of a new item where the AI would’ve generated the full description of the item
· User satisfaction, with both scores rating the main feature, and qualitative feedback gathered from surveys and interviews