Understanding the Problem

Goal:

Help college students dispose and buy their furniture in environmentally conscious ways.

Problem and Significance:

1/3 of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year.

100% of college students (n=27) in our survey said cost was a factor in purchasing furniture.

College students do not trust secondhand furniture because of cleaners concerns

College students often do not have transportation when moving

Problem Statement:

College students want to make sustainable furniture choices but struggle to do so.

Target Users:

College Students

Foundational Research

Goal:

To understand our users general needs, wants, and pain points to give us direction for the following stages in research

Example Questions:

What aspects do you consider when purchasing furniture?

Where did you buy your furniture?

What made you consider or not consider buying second-hand furniture?

User Characteristics and Findings:

Demographics:

Average college student 18-28 years old (including undergrads and graduates)

Limited Budget:

Many students are living off loans - do not have the means to spend a lot of money to furnish their apartments

100% of college students (n=27) in our survey said cost was a factor in purchasing furniture.

Due to the limited budget, student often by from Ikea or Wayfair which sell hard-to-recycle furniture made with toxins

1/3 of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year.

It is easier to dispose of the furniture than move it

Aesthetics and Style:

Although college students are shopping on a budget they care about the style of the items they buy

Since they move a lot, students want their space to feel cozy and personalized

Do not care about brand names of furniture

Trustworthiness and Cleanliness:

Students are cautious about buying second hand, as they worry about the trustworthiness of the source

Students worry a lot about bed bugs

Student prefer to buy furniture from people they know

Online vs. Offline:

Student buy using both

Students use social media to influence their furniture items and like to follow social media trends

Observational Research:

Goal:

Understand college students second hand furniture purchasing habits.

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Westside Market
Battle Ground Antiques
Atlanta Used Furniture Market

Analysis and Findings:

There was little to no college students or customers in their 20s shopping at these stores

The customers shopping at these stores did not seem to have anything in particular they were looking for, just walk aimlessly

Most of the items for sale were too expensive for college students

The aesthetic of the items were not the style college student gravitate toward

Stakeholder Map:

To further understand the problem space we gathered, desk research and observations we identified these key stakeholders in our project.

Design Implications:

Interviews:

Student Semi-Structured Interviews

Goal: To understand both the target users on how they have bought and disposed furniture in the past and how our stakeholders fit into the process to understand limitations within our problem space.

Context: Semi-structured interviews 6 students

Research Questions:
What types of companies do students buy from?
What factors are involved when students buy furniture?
What are the current ways to dispose of furniture?
What are sustainable ways for people to dispose furniture?

Analysis: We created an affinity map to understand our insights.

Findings:

I have problems with transporting large pieces of furniture

I do not dispose furniture in a sustainable way because of limited time

I know of sustainable furniture disposal methods but do not know how

I have failed at buying secondhand items

I do not want to purchase good quality/expensive furniture because I need to move

I can not furnish my apartment by myself

Contextual Interviews - Junk Removal and Secondhand Donation Store Employee Interviews

Goal: To understand the current big picture of the furniture reuse and recycling system by both observing and questioning users in this space.

Context: Contextual Interviews with 3 experts in this space

Research Questions:
What is the recycling process?
Who are the stakeholders?
What are some existing recycling systems?
What are the issues therein?
What role does the government play here?

Analysis and Findings:

Charity centers reject low-quality furniture and often do not recycle them

Charity centers often collaborate with influencers to advertise and attract customers

Charity centers either lack delivery services or use third-party firms to transport the items

Customers buy cheap furniture, refurbish, and resell it at a markup price on other platforms

At recycling centers, good quality furniture returns to the office to be donated or refurbished.

Task Analysis:

Task: A college student on a budget wants to buy a secondhand bed frame and does not want to spend more than $200.

Goal: College students have to furnish their apartments cheaply while under time constraints.

Characteristics: College students relocate more frequently than the average person and often need physical assistance for both transportation and furniture assembly while pressed for time.

Findings:

Many decisions need to be made

Conducts lots of research

Need external support and help

Needs Analysis:

Findings: We applied what we learned from the task analysis and the needs analysis into the design requirements shown below.

Design Requirements:

Goal: Our aim is to design a platform that would encompass sustainably obtaining and disposing of furniture with better accessibility and efficiency.

Requirements:

A way to buy & dispose

Should create incentives & motives for using furniture ( Gen Z & trends)

Community to connect different stakeholders & build trust

Should encompass on- & offline accessibility

Convenient transportation system/ services should be provided

Users should be able to customize/personalize furniture to create a personal connection

Furniture-relevant information should be made more accessible

Ideation:

Process:

Step 1: 250 Initial Ideas Collage boards and 50 ideas in 10 minutes	Step 2: 50 Selected Ideas Dot voting and team discussion
Step 3: 10 Refined Ideas Discussion and brainstorm	Step 4: 2 Storyboards

Design Concept: UberMove

A self-driving truck that drives around a robot that will assist users in moving furniture to their next apartment or a donation center. The robot will help the user load the furniture into the truck and then move the item into its final destination. This will help users because users often require help when moving and need transportation.

Rationale:

There is a need for a more convenient and assistive method for moving and transportation

Addresses purchasing furniture and disposing furniture

Students are under time pressure

Addresses the accessibility issue of students physically moving furniture (with consideration to disabled students)

Students typically do not have the funds to hire a moving company to help them

Students have access to more used good quality furniture

This is a futuristic concept and experimenting with new tech

Prototype:

The prototypes shown are the ones I personally created the Profile section

Low Fidelity Prototype	High Fidelity Prototype

Final Prototype

The prototype flow for the profile page

The prototype flow for buying a chair

The prototype flow for the rewards system

User Testing:

I lead the usability testing which consisted of the users completing 3 task and we gauged the task success on a set of task performance metrics.

Tasks:

1. The user wants to buy a leather chair that is under $100 and have the item delivered to their apartment.
2. The user has to find a way to sell their used couch bed before the time that they move out of their current residence, which is set to take place in one week and wants to check if the couch bed is out for delivery.
3. The user wants to check the delivery status of their most recent order.

Task Performance Metrics:

Task Success - Frequency or percent of completion

Completion Time - Time taken to complete task

Errors - Frequency of errors by task

Learnability - Performance improvement over time

Overall Impressions

Questions

Then we asked the user a set of self-reported metrics and asked them to rank their response on a scale of 1-5

Participants:

The participants (n=4) were master students and their demographics overlapped with our target users, as we focused on college students. The only potential difference between our participants and our target users is that they were not necessarily in the market to buy or sell furniture.

Analysis Process:

To prepare for thematic and numeric analyses, we took detailed notes in a spreadsheet and documented users' responses with qualitative and quantitative data during the user testing.

Then the data analysis was completed thematically using an affinity map, to pull the common themes from the data.

Results and Findings:

Buying

User Finding	Design Implications
Users expressed concerns towards the readability due to the small font on the order detail page.	The design should focus on increasing font size for better readability, implementing responsive design for varying screen sizes, and ensuring high contrast and a straightforward layout. Think about the how to address the accessibility issue.
Users got confused by the icons on the product page (camera and like). Cart button/ icon is not obvious.	The design should have more intuitive visuals or add clear labels to improve user understanding. Ensure information presented is readable and accessible through colors, sizes, and layouts.
Users got confused by the price tag, looks like a button.	The design should differentiate the appearance of the price tag from interactive elements like buttons through shape, color, or style to clearly distinguish from clickable informational elements.
Users didn't understand the business model, especially the role of the warehouse.	The platform should incorporate clear content or visual aids to explain how the platform works. Consider an onboarding process or help center to address common questions
Users expressed concern about the functionality of the shopping page since there are many products within the platform.	The platform should implement the filter function to help users easily find or narrow down searches.
Users got confused by the delivery service due to a lack of price clarification.	The platform should provide easily accessible information about delivery costs and options. Differentiate the delivery and moving services by providing a short description.

Buying: Self-Reported Metrics (Key Results)

Selling

User Finding	Design Implications
Users were not aware of our business model while selling furniture.	The platform should educate users about how the business model work to minimize confusion. This could be done through adding an onboarding process and making instructions more clear while users interact with selling features.
Users expressed concern towards the opportunity cost of selling furniture on our platform. (After listing furniture on our platform, they lost opportunities to sell on other platforms).	The platform should provide certain level of guarantee that furniture will going to be sold within a certain period of time. To achieve this, we should make the business model more robust and create visual designs that can foster trust.
Users got confused by the 'Choose Category' page due to lack of visual clarity.	The design should match users' mental model of category selection. Visual details such as the checked icon and color should also be improved to support that.
Users expressed concerns towards the readability due to packed layout and small font on the confirmation page.	The font should be legible on mobile devices with various screen sizes. Spacing should also be adjusted to create a better visual hierarchy
Users get confused when checking their ongoing orders on the homepage.	The ongoing order card on the homepage should indicate the order number or name for clarity.

Selling: Self-Reported Metrics (Key Results)

Rewards System

User Finding	Design Implications
Users initially didn't understand how the rewards system works.	The instruction of how users can benefit from the rewards system should be provided clearly to ignite motivation for people to purchase/sell furniture on our platform.
Users found the rewards not incentivizing enough due to the static page design.	The rewards system should better emphasize the sustainability concept through a more intricate storyline and engaging interactions.

Self-Reported Metrics (Key Results)

Impact

Reduction in Resource Consumption: SecondSprouts allows college students to buy and sell second-hand furniture, which contributes to a reduction in the demand for new furniture production. This directly translates to a decrease in the consumption of raw materials, energy, and water resources required for manufacturing new furniture items which benefits the environment.

Waste and Price Reduction: College students, often on a tight budget, can find affordable and quality second-hand furniture options through the platform. By encouraging a culture of reuse, SecondSprouts actively participates in the circular economy, where items are kept in use for as long as possible, reducing the overall environmental impact associated with disposal and manufacturing and allows college students to find cheaper furniture pieces.

Lessons Learned

I learned how to initiate a project with a broad, open problem, such as devising a method for college students to purchase furniture. In addressing this challenge, I acquired the skills to conduct exploratory research about users through a blend of methods like user interviews, surveys, and usability testing. This process honed my ability to unearth valuable insights into user behaviors and preferences, which, in turn, informed and shaped the ultimate solution.