Shoppr Project

Shoppr Design Process

About Us

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Introducing Shoppr

We'll owl-ways find the best deals for you!

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Overview

We aim to simplify and streamline the online shopping experience for university students by providing a platform that allows them to compare prices and filter results across multiple shopping apps, reducing the time and effort required to find the best deals and alleviating the guilt associated with time wasted on app hopping.

Shoppr was designed by a group of 4 undergraduates,

Hnin Azali⁠

Tay Jean Yee⁠

Varrene⁠

Win Lae Yee⁠

for NUS's CS3240 (Interaction Design) module in 2023.

Shoppr Summary Slides

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Problem

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Hopping between different apps to compare prices is common among university students who shop online to purchase the best-value items. In an attempt to find the best listing online, student shoppers try different search terms and apply multiple filter combinations, often repeatedly on different shopping apps. Searching for best-value items across multiple apps is time-consuming and leaves our student shoppers fatigued scrolling up and down product listings, and toggling left and right between apps. We often feel guilty about the time we waste after our online shopping spree.

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This is also supported by our findings in our user research as 30.4% of respondents take a month to purchase a desired product.

We are attempting to address the tedious problem of app hopping in search for the best value for item online for undergraduate students who online shop.

Target User Groups

We have chosen to focus our target audience on undergraduate student shoppers (ages 20 - 24), who do not have a stable income yet. Young adults like undergraduates are specifically targeted because of their generation's tech-savvy embracing of anything wired, including online shopping and supporting technologies. Given their lower disposable income and savviness, they are most likely to face the tedious problem of app hopping in search of the best value for item online.

From our secondary research, we identified 4 primary (Impulse Buyer, Bargain Hunter, Educated Customer and Indecisive Patron) and 2 secondary (Window Shopper and Price Spy) target user groups. This process allowed us:

To better understand the characteristics and behaviours of our intended users

To find and select participants for our primary user research who closely match our target user group to gain valuable and relevant insights

User Research & Findings

As a method of user study, we conducted a survey with 30 respondents via Google Forms and contextual inquiry with 6 interviewees, representing each of our target groups. Our rationale behind conducting surveys first and then contextual inquiry is as follows. We recruited our participants through social media direct messages and groups, including Telegram and Instagram.

Goals

Gather quantitative and qualitative data on e-commerce shopping habits

Identify trends and patterns in the target group’s shopping behaviour

Explore and examine the survey findings through contextual inquiry interviews in natural e-commerce shopping settings to gather information about the context and tools used

Collaborate closely with participants to co-create and co-design e-commerce experiences.

Analysis of Data Gathered

Survey Findings

Our most interesting findings from our survey are consolidated as below.

Price and product rating/reviews are the top factors that influence online purchasing decisions on average. Most of the respondents decide a product is of good quality based on the item’s reviews on different platforms. Some also consider high sales and verified seller status on the platform.

57.1% of respondents say their priorities when buying a product online vary depending on the category, while 42.9% say they remain consistent across categories. This finding suggests that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to online product decision-making and purchasing, as prioritisation of factors may or may not change depending on the product category. Thus, it is important for us to design a product, tailored to meet the specific needs and preferences of different target group segments, and allow users to customise their decision making metrics.

52% of the respondents use tabular list when organizing their shopping list. This led us to consider tabular lists for saving products and comparisons, resulting in the "save" feature in our design donning a tabular design.

Contextual Inquiry Findings

For the contextual inquiry, we wanted to observe the users doing the following tasks. We utilised think aloud method to gain insight into users’ actions, decision-making processes, their likes and dislikes.

Buy the most recent item on any of their favourite shopping app.

Buy the most recent item from

iprice.sg⁠

, a competitor platform similar to ours.

Our contextual inquiry was followed by a semi-structured interview.

Questions focused on understanding the user’s decision making, time taken, UI features inspiration and validation from current shopping platforms.

We conducted interviews and contextual inquiries for all 6 of our interviewees and grouped our findings in the affinity diagram.

Affinity Diagram

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Our findings from our contextual inquiry

User Needs

Users require a feature to save shortlisted items and a consolidated view to compare listings in an effortless manner.

User Goals

Users seek a convenient and efficient shopping experience with structured decision-making and access to the best deals.

User Problems

Users struggle with decision-making and customization when trying to find the best deals for different product categories, often using the shopping cart as an intermediate avenue but finding it laborious to compare listings.

Users also prefer a simple and organized interface without unnecessary information or ads.

Constraints

Users have varying priorities when purchasing items, including price, seller ratings, product reviews, and shipping.

Users are influenced by discounts from sellers, but have limited attention to switch between applications to compare options.

Design Problems/ Challenges

Comparing products must be organised and present useful information to attract purchases rather than impede decision-making

The transition between different app interfaces should not feel too drastic for the user as it would make the shopping experience disjointed

The features that users find useful are robust and complex but the interface design that the user needs is simple and clean

Primary User Persona

From our user study and data analysis, we have found that educated customers are more likely to spend hours researching products, stores' inventory, and reading customer reviews, as well as comparing prices across different websites and apps. Given their specific shopping habits and behaviors, we believe that educated customers would benefit the most from our application. By streamlining the online shopping experience and allowing for easy comparison of prices and filtering of results across multiple shopping apps, we can help alleviate the time and effort required to find the best deals for educated customers. As such, we have identified educated customers as our primary user persona, as they are the ones who stand to gain the most from using our platform.

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