Stash

Overview

PROJECT
Stash - Textbook marketplace UX UI case study

ROLE
Concept / Research / Visuals

DURATION
November - December 2020

HOW WE GOT HERE

As a university student - cash was always very tight. If I needed a textbook, I found myself either borrowing a copy from the library or taking pictures of specific pages that I needed. As you could probably tell, this wasn’t the most efficient way of studying. Popular second-hand marketplaces like Facebook or TradeMe NZ were often unreliable and difficult to sift through.

Stash was my first attempt at going through the end-to-end design process to solve a potential problem that a group of users may be facing. In the following short case study I will play the role of a UX lead who has been briefed by his client.

MVP

Stash is an iOS application that allows users to buy and sell textbooks across the globe. The focus is to remove the unnecessary complexities that comes with a general marketplace platform by minimising the use of buttons and navigational features.


We recognise that textbooks are expensive - and looking for one second-hand might not be worth the time and effort. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

THE MISSION

To spread the access of information. While primarily targeted for university students, people from all backgrounds and age-groups are more than welcome to sign up.

The problem is not a complicated one

The choices of existing platforms to use when looking for textbooks are severely limited. The most common platform, Facebook marketplace is often crowded with unrelated material that makes it difficult to find the exact book students are looking for.

Furthermore, current methods of selling used textbooks may be limited in the audience they reach.

Style guide

Yellow will serve as the base colour while headings and subheadings in dark grey. I chose yellow because it indicates familiarity, friendliness and comfort - all feelings that students gravitate towards.


I avoided the use of contrasting colours to make it easier on the user’s eyes.

User flow

All the information you need, shown first

After registering or logging in, the user will be presented with this home screen. Here, they will be able to access every function available on Stash.


Below the search bar, Stash will suggest the user with different topics or tags based on their interests and viewing history.

Update your information, add interests

Users are able to edit their personal details from the profile tab. Here they can customise their interests by adding and removing subjects from the ‘Interests’ section. This is one factor that will be taken into as the AI suggests search terms in the home screen.

Your Stash

This is where everything is organised. All the books you’ve bid on, liked, listed, purchased, sold and unsold are divided into two categories: “Buying” and “selling”. Users can then navigate accordingly using the subheadings to for example, see if their bid on a book is the highest one at that point in time.

Users are also able to refresh this screen freely to update the view count, bid count, bid amount, etc.

Seamless listings

This is the main feature of Stash. In order to differentiate it from its other functions, I decided to make the entire background of this screen yellow.

Users will be able to list their books with ease and will start by selecting which category the book fits in. It’s worth noting that multiple categories can be selected at once.

Takeaways

As mentioned previously, this was my first time attempting an end-to-end design process. While creating the high fidelity mockups, there were several instances in which I was unsure where to place certain features and buttons. If I had just taken more time to flesh out the initial user research phase, perhaps I would have been able to pinpoint exactly what the user needs and where. This includes making full use of user interviews, personas, journey maps and competitive analysis.

Creating a platform to trade textbooks was something that I personally wanted to experiment with for a long time. Naturally, this created a lot of bias in my design choices. In terms of next steps, I would like to take the mockups to build a high-fidelity prototype. This would then be used to conduct a comprehensive usability study with at least 10 participants to determine which features work and uncover any blockers.

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