Website for finding small businesses Case Stydy
Project:
Responsive WEB-page for finding small businesses
Role:
UX designer, Visuals
Project duration:
February 2022 to April 2022.
Project Vision
I created a website to help locals find and promote businesses in local areas and suburbs. The purpose of this service is that people who is living in such areas have no tools to access such information, because all concurrent services are targeting capitals. Simple navigation, contrast colors, keyboard access, screen reader, headings and landmarks, responsive design and Open Source was a main goal.
Challenges
- Service on-the-go.
- Consistency on Desktop and Mobile.
- Accessibility.
- Lightweight and ease of use.
In this project, I took conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs. Interviews, and most important our persona hypothesis construction. I started out by asking myself some initial key questions.
“What is the product and who is it for?”
“What do our primary users need?”
“What Accessibility options users needs?”
I found data from SME interview to be the most effective understandings I garnered. Then I used an affinity diagram to separate the data into groups of tasks which were further categorized by high level goals for improvement in efficiency, accessibility and familiarity. Recognizing the conflicts of interest from each audience allowed me to focus on shaping user goals and how those goals would turn in real service.
Meet Users
Toms
Age: 23
Education: Bachelors degree
Hometown: Ogre
Family: Himself
Occupation: School teacher
Toms is a 23 y.o. Primary school computer science teacher, they likes bicycle trips and canoe.
As a local I want to know what businesses are around me so I can support them.
Liene
Age: 52
Education: Ph.D. Chemistry
Hometown: Smiltene
Family: Husband and 2 kids
Occupation: Business owner
Liene is a small business owner and mother of four. They loves countryside and eco food.
As a small business owner, I want people to know what I`am doing and also want to cooperate with other local bussinesses, that leads my business to grow.
Competitive Analysis
I was looked for potential competing services, and found none compete directly with my project. Small Business Finding Service has the opportunity to be the first Open Source project.
The majority of the features was inspired from social networks and search engines:
- Responsive WEB
- Map function
- Location picker
- Carousels
Paper wireframes
Iteration
After creating my prototype from low fidelity wireframes, I prepared a 6 question survey for participants to fill out before began conducting a usability test. I asked 5 different participants to run through different scenarios in my prototype in hopes of garnering enough feedback to use for our next set of design iterations.
P0 Navigation
Navigation has to be more simple and intuitive like dragging map.
P1
Real-time automatic location function.
P2
Push messages.
Style
Calm and modern colors were used to not distract the user from the service itself.
Hi-Fi prototype interactions
Takeaways
Impact:
This project helps users faster explore their locations and promote local businesses, thinks about how to meet their needs and expectations.
What I learned:
The first ideas for the project, as always, are only the beginning of the process. Usability studies and peer feedback influenced each iteration of the design.