Blog update #3a Updated task examples
We did not make any changes to the task examples. Task examples from MSII can be found below:
Sarah's Selling Experience Enhancement
Sarah, an undergraduate student, wants to sell her old clothing online to raise funds. She operates from home, managing multiple listings on platforms like Craigslist and Etsy. With limited time, she seeks a solution that allows her to create a centralized listing. She is looking for a platform that would enable her to easily showcase her items, direct buyers to third-party platforms, and manage all offers in one place. The design should prioritize a clear and robust layout, high visibility of information, and the ability to filter listings by categories.
Josh's Efficient Furniture Sale
Nathan's Moving Sale Streamlining
Blog update #3b Low Fidelity Prototype(s) Demonstration
Blog update #3c – Additional Information about Prototype(s):
Our Lofi prototype covers task examples 1 and 3. In task example 2, we mention how the seller wants “to share only one link to all of his listings, which contains relevant information about himself as a buyer, his hours of availability to meet up for the week, and thorough descriptions of the items he has for sale”, however we have decided to focus on creating an internal platform for buyers instead, while still incorporating most of these elements into our design. Our goal is to make the platform more of an inventory management system for buyers, rather than focusing on it to be an external facing selling platform. Since our task examples talk about how multiple items across multiple platforms are being listed by one user, we have made our design similar to a stocks and investing platform, where it shows your watchlist on the left side of current holdings, and if you click into a specific item, then it shows all the additional details such as name, description, what platforms it's listed on and the average price of this item across all marketplaces, with the potential of adding further advanced analytics to it.
With this design, we aim to target mainly more experienced sellers for our platform, as a seller who only has a handful of listings on one platform most likely will not need advanced functionalities that our platform offers. In our task examples, it is mentioned that each seller is using unique platforms for listing their items, and we want to streamline the ease of posting and managing inventory in one place rather than the user having to repeatedly log in to different websites and manage items across these different platforms.
We decided to go with this design over the “Lazy Use Interface” that we designed in Blog Update 2, as we thought the design was already similar to what each individual platform already offers when it comes to the flow of listing an item for sale. We are aiming to come up with a unique all in one dashboard that provides advanced analytics such as historical offer prices and frequency sold, so the buyer can make better informed decisions about their items for sale instead of focusing just on categorizing items.
Blog update #3d Walkthrough Report - Streamlined Student Selling Platform
Task Examples:
Sarah: Sell old clothes online, manage listings centrally, and raise funds.
Nathan: Sell furniture, electronics, and a vehicle efficiently through various platforms while managing time effectively.
Walkthrough Steps:
Create Listing:
Focus: Both Sarah and Nathan navigated the main page to create a new listing.
Ask Yourself: Do users understand how to add items and provide necessary details? Do they have clear instructions and format guidance?
Explore: Can users easily find the "Add Item" function and navigate input fields? Are there helpful tools for uploading photos and managing content?
(During “Add Item”) Connect to Marketplaces:
Focus: Users create listings with relevant information (descriptions, photos, pricing) for their respective items. They select multiple platforms that they wanted to sell on and chose the category.
Ask Yourself: Do users know how to choose and connect the platform to their listing?
Explore: Can users easily find and select target platforms? Are there clear descriptions and icons for each?
Interpret: Does Sarah/Nathan understand the potential description requirements associated with each platform? Do users understand feedback on missing information or incorrect formats?
(After uploading) Manage Listings and Offers:
Focus: Users need to manage their listings and receive offers from potential buyers.
Ask Yourself: Do users understand how to access and edit listings? Can they easily manage incoming offers and communicate with buyers?
Explore: Can users access a centralized offer management section? Is buyer information and communication tools readily available?
Interpret: Do users understand notification systems for new offers and options for accepting, negotiating, or declining them?
Outcomes:
Users were able to successfully create listings with clear descriptions and photos.
Users could choose and connect preferred selling platforms.
Users manage offers from different platforms through a centralized location and select the best options.
Users were able to see the option to edit the listing in various ways.
Issues that arose:
Difficulty in understanding offers from different platforms simultaneously on a unique listing.
We previously mentioned that we would include the option to see the different description requirements from different platforms, but the users were not given that option. Rather they had one description which they could fill, which would be used by all the different platforms that they decide to post the listing on.
3e - Proposed goal(s) of experiment:
Below is the list of goals for our experiment, ranked by (a) importance and (b) our ability to test them.
P1 - High Priority
P2 - Medium Priority
P3 - Low Priority
Are sellers able to add a new listing?
This is one of the primary features of the system, assigned P1.
This workflow design has been demonstrated in the current lo-fi prototype and we anticipate continuing with the application in the med-fi prototype for the later updates.
Are sellers able to update the listing with new items for sale?
This is one of the primary features of the system, assigned P1.
This workflow design has been demonstrated in the current lo-fi prototype and we anticipate continuing with the application in the med-fi prototype for the later updates.
Can sellers delete the listing after the item has been listed for sale?
This is one of the primary features of the system, assigned P1.
This workflow design has been demonstrated in the current lo-fi prototype and we anticipate continuing with the application in the med-fi prototype for the later updates.
Are sellers able to select the relevant platform and update listings accordingly?
This is one of the primary features of the system, assigned P1.
This workflow design has been demonstrated in the current lo-fi prototype and we anticipate continuing with the application in the med-fi prototype for the later updates.
Are sellers able to view the already sold items?
This is one of the primary features of the system, assigned P1.
This workflow design has been demonstrated in the current lo-fi prototype and we anticipate continuing with the application in the med-fi prototype for the later updates.
Are sellers able to view the highest offer received for an item in a day?
This is one of the secondary focuses of the system, assigned P2.
The high-level workflow design has been demonstrated in the current lo-fi prototype but is not considered P1 since it doesn’t affect the system's functioning directly.
Are sellers able to expand the selected item listing?
This is one of the secondary focuses of the system, assigned P2.
This piece of the system is not considered P1 since it doesn’t affect the system's functioning directly but can be included in the later part of the project.
Are sellers able to view the ratings received through different sales?
This is currently considered P3 as we have yet to delve deeper into the implementation and actual functionality of this feature in the project.
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