A Groundbreaking
Second-hand Shopping App

Thriftwise-- A Case Study

THRIFTWISE

Thriftwise is a second-hand shopping app that allows users to quickly discover the low prices and best conditions, it makes the shopping experience easy and enjoyable.

THE PROBLEM

People need a better way to shop for second-hand items, they are stressed, irritated, and frustrated because it is often difficult for them to find a suitable second-hand item.

Also, they are not confident in making decisions to purchase for various reasons.

“Sometimes second-hand shopping gives me a lot of headaches...I wish there is an easier way..”

THE GOAL

Enhance the second-hand shopping experience by withdrawing frustration and irritation.

EARLY DISCOVERY

To gain more understanding of the problems from multiple perspectives, I conducted a series of secondary research, here are some key findings:

REAL VOICES

“ I often buy used stuff because it is cheap and it helps to save money…”

80% of interview participants shop second-hand for saving money, their goal is to get the most value for the price they pay. They tend to buy the best price option because they have a strict budget.


On top of that, they are more concerned that if they are being taken advantage of by the sellers, or if they are overpaying for the item.

“It annoys me when it takes forever to find the thing I need, not to mention,
sometimes I just couldn’t find anything at all…”

60% of interview participants think they often spend too much time looking for an item on other second-hand shopping sites, but could not end up finding the desired item, they are often disappointed.

“ Even if I want to get something cheap, I still don’t want to get something old and dirty…”

100% of interview participants are concerned about the items’ conditions when shopping second-hand.

This type of shopper normally read through item descriptions carefully and sometimes requires large amounts of closed-up photos or videos, they would also contact sellers regarding their questions.

PERSONA AND USER STORY

USER FLOW

To better visualize the steps that Jack and Netra would take to achieve their goals, the user flow down below was created to reperesent the two tasks:

Route 1: Shortening search time and find the best price.
Route 2: Find an item in the best condition.

SKETCHES

With the user flow as a structure in mind, I started to envision the product’s design by sketching in Procreate. Two main design principles that I followed while creating screens:

  • Simple and straightforward
    The interaction of this app is simple to use, each screen has the appropriate amount of content, so the users are not overwhelmed.

  • Easy to understand
    The users can learn the app as they use it, and do not experience any unnecessary confusion.

GUERRILLA USABILITY TEST

With the sketches ready, I was able to conduct my first guerrilla usability test, wanting to find out if the screen drafts make sense to people and if each step proceeds smoothly.

COLOR AND FONT

The typeface Montserrat was selected as the main font in my app because it is such a modern and simple font, which allows the personas to read through item detail information easily, as well as speed up the searching process.

Blueberry #788BFF
represents intelligence, thoughtfulness, and trust, it is also a symbol of rationality and science.

Maine #5465FF
A darker shade of blueberry represents a different hierarchy.

Orange #FB8500
A complementary color, to call attention to actions.

USABILITY TEST

  • Can you find the cheapest item(office chair) of all?

  • If you are interested in three items at the same time but want to find one in the best condition, what would you do?

The second round of usability tests was conducted with a clickable high-fidelity prototype.
Mainly focus on the following two tasks:

FINAL SOLUTION