Zwende

This was my first real client project. I pushed to do this research project to be able to gain experience where I needed it most. Zwende is an india-based platform that allows users to purchase customized handcrafted products around the world. I was honoroed to work with Zwende, they are responsible for creating many great opportunities for makers in India.

Overview

The Problem:

Zwende is currently in the process of entering the US market, and would like to identify user personas for the websites Etsy.com and Minted.com, two key players in the US market they seek to join. The second part of this project is to do a competitive benchmark study to see how their current site compares with similar players in the industry.

The Solution:

To use my exprience through Springboard’s course to conduct reasearch and analysis to create competitor personas, as well and collect competitor information and please in an informative presentation for the client.

My Role:

I conducted all research for this project with some guidance from my mentor.

Idenfitying Competitor Personas

Research

Primary Research:

I was able to work on these two project parts in tandem does to the timing of finding participants to interview to begin research to find personas for Etsy.com and Minted.com. Instead of finding subjects through a screener survey, I reached out to friends on social media and members of special-interest social groups to find qualified participants to interview.

I conducted and recorded 5 interviews. Two were with acquaintances that I conducted in person at coffee shops, and the other three using either zoom or skype with participants I found online. I found it worthwhile to incentivise these participants with giftcards to starbucks to make sure they were timely and high quality.

I recorded each of the interviews and idenfitied insights which I then used to create an affinity map.

Analysis

Affinity Map:

Using notes and recordings from my interviews, I pulled numerous insights and grouped them into the following categories:

• Online Shopping Habits Choosing Where to Shop
• Narrowing Down Products
• Gifting
• Checkout
• Budgeting
• Crafting
• Navigation
• Motivations
• Positive Aspects
• Negative Aspects

Empathy Maps:

WIth the insights I found I was able to identify three of the main user groups that stood out based on their motivations for shoping on the sites Etsy and Minted.

1.  The Gift Giver
2. The Hobbyist
3. The Supporter

I used the user groups definined in my empathy maps to create three unique personas to keep in mind for the project

Competitive Benchmark Study

Research

Secondary Research:

The purpose of this part of the project is to identify strengths and weaknesses of several competitors in the US market that Zwende is looking to enter, and to use these findings to create suggestions nad action steps for Zwenede to consider that would help\ create success during this transition.

Since I was working alone and limited on time, I conducted all of the research for the competitive benchmark analysis alone. I decided to create a Competitive Analysis Matrix table to compare 7 competitors and then create an in-depth presentation deliverable to give to Zwende that focuses on user experience.

DIRECT COMPETITORS

INDIRECT COMPETITORS

Analysis

Competitive Analysis Matrix:

I used google sheets to create a spreadsheet that compares 7 other e-commerce sites that I chose. I selected 5 direct competitors and 2 indirect competors to make sure I have a large variety to compare. take when interacting with my product.

Competitive Benchmark Analysis:

I created a detailed slideshow to compare all 7 websites across 7 UX metrics which chose:

• Visual Appearance/Design
• Trust/Credibility
• Seller Information
• Ease of Tasks: Create an Account
• Ease of Tasks: Search/Browse
• Ease of Tasks: Customize a Product
• Ease of Tasks: Check Out

After every metric, I included takeaways and recommendations to help Zwende improve their UX. Here are a few of those screens. These can be found in the slideshow.

I praised the site for it’s unique features, but also pointed out some issues with loading times that could be contributing to higher bounce rates on these pages, found in the client’s analytics information.

I recommend a suggestion to take the opportunity in checkout to upsell products to the user, much like several of the other competitors in the analysis.

Conclusion

Lessons Learned:

This Industry Design Project match was definitely not what I expected since this was a research project and my experience is in graphic design, but I was delighted for the opportunity to get more experience working in research and to add more diversity to my portfolio.

• This was my second time to conduct interviews for a project. I found that I was better at thinking ahead and coming up with the right questions to ask to find the most valuable information to create excellent personas.
• The research I did for the Competitie Benchmark Analysis was very challenging at first, but ended up being fun. I was very intimidated by creating such a detailed slideshow that needed to speak for itself, but once I got going, it became a lot easier and I learned a lot along the way about the best things to focus on during this type of research.
• After completing this research project, I feel like I have a much better grasp on the part of UX that was the most unfamiliar to me. Coming up with this valuable information for the client feels very helpful and is something I am proud to say I can do!