UX Design Apprenticeship @ SSI — Sprint 0 :)
Ok, so the way that my Sprint Zero started was by receiving a big project — to redesign Amazon’s website.
Caleb, Angie, and Kris sat me down and told me how it all goes, how things are completed, that there are these phases (I’m still not too clear on that one), and that each day has two points; 1 point in the morning, and 1 point in the afternoon, and that you count your points at the end of the week to evaluate your process.
There were many, many other things they told me, and I asked questions, and they were very nice and courteous to me, responding to everything. However, the thing that kept running through my head was AMAZON.com. My mind was itching to jump on the website and to look at it with the eyes of a designer, to really study it and evaluate it, to take a bunch of notes, read a bunch of articles, and just try to ‘take it all in’, as Caleb said. I wanted to see what was wrong with it, what could be better, what did I as a user struggled with, and also what did others struggle with while on the Amazon site’s experience.
STAGE 1 — Research
I went through the Amazon, took a lot of notes. I read other articles about Amazon, and then I looked at other websites that did what Amazon does, conducting Competition Analysis. And then I talked to people, many people working at SSI, interviewing them, listening to their stories about Amazon, how Amazon has really saved them since it’s so hard to get things in the small town of Shelbyville, IL. Clint told me how he’s been using Amazon since the time it was still just a bookstore, how he looks at the best choice, or the highest rated products, to make his decision. He talked a bit about ratings, how he doesn’t trust some of the ratings because they are completely irrelevant. Other people talked about account issues, about how cluttered Amazon is — but they still love it and go back to it time and time again. The few messages I got from my interviews was that Amazon is like a life-saver, especially to small towns and cities, since you can get pretty much anything there; but, people also told me that it’s way too cluttered.
STAGE 2 — Synthesis and Analysis
With all of my research, findings, and pain points discovered, I had to create a bigger picture and to understand better where the clutters and trends lay.
Above is a part of my Affinity Map with all of the ideas, thoughts, and insights uncovered from my interviews and my own observations. I did not create the topics and trends — they created themselves based on what people told me.
I created some more documents, took more pictures, tried to really think about what I was seeing. I think that probably one of the hardest parts of being a designer is coming up with clever, elegant solutions to a problem. You can learn the methods and technologies, and you can definitely learn the design thinking. However, I feel like the art of a beautiful solution, where you can place everything you’ve learned so intuitively in your mind, and you’re so aware of everything, I think that takes time and lots of practice, and thinking, and research, to get to.
STAGE 3 — Stories and Re-design
From everything found, and seen, and heard, I decided to focus on the aspects of a review on the Amazon website. I thought it was pretty interesting, and I wanted to see how other websites do this. When I talked to the users, they told me how hard it is to filter the reviews, that a product could have thousands of reviews, but what if I’m interested in a specific kind of a review/reviews?
The other story I decided to focus on was creating a more trusted review experience. I got this idea from talking to Clint and his feedback of the website. From what I’ve noticed on Amazon, they only have one kind of a review, rating everything. However, Audible has 3 different reviews, as do other sites. I used examples from these other websites to create a more intuitive reviewing experience (however, you can probably never really achieve a perfect design).
It’s not perfect by any means. It’s still pretty cluttered, especially in the title section, as well as the product description section. However, I added several rating sections. I took this example from other websites that I studied. My idea was that maybe this gives a better experience as far as rating of a product goes, and trusting it. Perhaps?
Above is a design prototype I created on Sketchapp, but undoubtedly it needs usability testing — getting feedback from users, trying to understand the design and re-design from their eyes, and then seeing how to reiterate and re-design and re-design, haha.
The process kinda just repeats itself.
I think that for me I was very comfortable with the research part. I love research and I think I’m very good at it, at really looking at something very closely, and analyzing it. But, then, once you got all of that data, what’s next? What do you do with it? You have to know how to use it, how to understand it, and what is the best use of it in creating a better experience for your users.
There’s so much in User Experience design, and it’s fascinating, so fascinating. I think that after I started learning about UX, it was like I started seeing the world with different eyes, with something like a designer’s eyes.
I remember one time I went to my local library back in Downers Grove, and for July 4th they had this Photo Booth set up with America’s flag in the background. There was no person taking the picture. You, the user, had to do everything yourself. There was an ipad set-up on a tripod. You had to enter your email, click a button on the app, and in 3 seconds the ipad clicked your picture. Moments later it was in your mailbox. I was so engrossed with this experience. This is Service Design! I exclaimed. The library is creating a better experience for its patrons by adding this uniquely beautiful experience that is so relevant for this occasion. I don’t think anyone else was as fascinated by it as I was, but for me the world had changed once I discovered UX :).
