Foxy
Quick & Clever Delivery
Provide consumers with an online shopping experience that is similar to the convenience and ease of Amazon and supports locally-owned businesses.
UX/UI Methodologies
Group project
• Development
• Information Architecture
• Prototyping
• UI Design
• Usability Testing
• User Research
Software
• Adobe CC (Illustrator, Photoshop)
• Figma
• Google Suite
• Invision
• Miro
Timeline
• Winter 2021, three weeks
Overview
At the beginning of this project, we had just come out of the chaos that was 2020. My team commiserated together after learning that Amazon had generated $386 billion over the first year of a global pandemic; in 2020, global sales for Amazon increased by 43%.
We saw this disparity as a problem, and we wanted to do something about it. Our solution was to provide a method for small, local businesses to compete with Amazon’s successful customer service experience (specifically their 2-day shipping, and stored payment and customer information).
As we progressed through our research, we found that our original solution had another dimension to it. Keep reading to find out!
Our process
01. Research & Insights
SURVEY
Ask the audience
After commiserating together, my team began our research by sending out an anonymous survey to gain understanding about people’s online shopping habits. Considering that online shopping was popular before the pandemic, we wanted to see just exactly how the pandemic changed these habits. We divided our findings into three main categories.
Shopping habits (online and in-person)
77%: “I shop online for most or all things.”
61%: “I rarely shop in person except for groceries.”
Pandemic shopping habits
64%: “My new shopping habits are most or all online with occasional pickups or store visits.”
34%: “My new shopping habits will forever be changed post pandemic.”
Thoughts on Amazon
86%: “Amazon is my number one visited online retailer.”
34%: “I like Amazon because they have my purchase history and manage returns well.”
Survey Insights
Insight 01: Consumers are thoughtful in their purchases and would like to support local retailers when possible, especially when they offer the conveniences of big retailers.
Insight 02: Consumers enjoy shopping from big retailers that have benefits such as a large product selection, product reviews, and a simple checkout process where their account information is saved.
Insight 03: For people who live in rural areas, Amazon offers variety and convenience not found in local stores.
Insight 04: Consumers are more intentional in their shopping habits since the pandemic started.
Amazon is a necessary evil; it meets many different needs for a lot of people and it does it successfully.
USER PERSONA AND JOURNEY MAP
Who is Muriel?
The consumer
Using our insights from the research process, we created a persona for Muriel The Consumer. Muriel represents the largest demographic of adult consumers, the millennial, with her perfect blend of online shopping habits and ever-changing technology capabilities.
Muriel’s goals: wants to make shopping decisions based on online research, such as reviews and photos, and wants to avoid paying shipping if possible.
Muriel’s pain points: doesn’t want to enter personal information on every site, finds it necessary to shop online because it’s not available nearby in person.
User Insights
Muriel wants to incorporate more local stores in her shopping habits but doesn’t have a curated directory of stores. She likes the convenience and services that big corporate retailers offers.
Muriel doesn’t like creating a new account for each online retailer she visits and would prefer an easy way to track her purchase history and store promotions in one place.
PROJECT PIVOT
Same goal, shifted strategy
Solving Muriel’s needs…
As we progressed through our research phase, we realized we were heading in the wrong direction only half a solution. The solution we were designing wouldn’t be able to meet Muriel’s needs without also providing a solution for retailers.
…also solves Donna’s needs (and vice versa)
Because a relationship between a consumer and a retailer is interconnected (they rely on each other in order to exist — ‘supply and demand’), we determined that we couldn’t have a solution that only met one of part of this relationship. By adding Donna, we had a more well-rounded solution.
We kept our goal the same, but we shifted our strategy on how to accomplish it.
USER PERSONA AND JOURNEY MAP
Who is Donna?
The retailer
After backtracking in our research process, we added Donna the Retailer as our other user. It was important to have Donna represent an older generation who may need some assistance adding an online storefront to her business, which relies on the brick-and-mortar experience. Donna also represents business owners, who don’t necessarily have the time to manage an online store along with other administration responsibilities.
Donna’s goals: strengthen the presence and reach of her existing website, incorporate technology to stay relevant and available to her customers.
Donna’s pain points: a lack of customers due to online retailers, lacks the technical skills and the time to place her website in front of customers more.
User Insights
Donna needs a more robust online presence so that customers who are worried about shopping in-person (during the pandemic, or otherwise) can continue to purchase products in her store.
Donna has many tasks to juggle as a small business owner and needs a solution to help her increase sales that is simple to implement and efficient to use with her existing business practices.
02. Definition & Ideation
The challenge
Amazon is a corporate behemoth that offers many different goods and services that their customers have grown to rely upon. This makes it challenging for small businesses to compete in the online marketplace. Customers shop at Amazon for convenience and out of necessity because their needs are fulfilled quickly and easily, even when local retailers might offer similar solutions for a similar price.
How might we create a solution for small businesses to distribute products quickly, securely store customer information, market products easier, and make shopping locally as accessible as Amazon?
VALUE PROPOSITION
What Foxy offers
Foxy enables small businesses to compete with Amazon more effectively by offering solutions for fast, local delivery and simplified payment processes to meet the needs of consumers who have grown to rely upon first class service from the world’s most successful e-commerce brand.
To keep up with the needs of environmentally conscious customers, Foxy offers a “Go Green” option of same-day bike delivery.
So what exactly is Foxy?*
What does Foxy offer to help consumers and retailers?*
Why did you name it Foxy?*
(*These are actual questions from our user research)
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION
Only the important parts
Before we began designing the UI, we needed to decide what features we needed our site to have. We used dot voting to prioritize what was most important, starting with the highest impact to our users and the lowest complexity to design.
High impact, low complexity
Features that help both the consumer and the retailer meet their goals.
• Shop by location
• Search by store type
• Stored payment and shipping information
• Directory of local stores to shop from
High impact, high complexity
Features that support the quick and convenient shipping and delivery process.
• Two-day shipping by shopping locally
• Same-day delivery by bike courier
• Easy returns included in easy shipping
Low impact, low complexity
Features that benefit the consumer when browsing the Foxy site.
• Suggest similar stores
• Store owner information is available to view
01. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Market research
Attempt 1
One of the main difficulties to getting our solution focused just right was determining how we wanted to solve the problem.
Our first attempt to analyzing competitors included an “analog” version of our perceived solution (Pikes Place Market in Seattle), our ideal solution (Not Amazon in Canada), and Amazon itself.
Attempt 2
We progressed into defining our solution, but found that we were heading in the wrong direction; we hadn’t included a solution for the consumer in our original analysis. We pivoted back to this process to include AfterPay in our competitor analysis.
UI DESIGN
The visual aspect
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The main logo with the tagline. A golden hue contrasts the forest green.
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A fox on a box. Shipping box branding.
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Vertical logo composition.
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A Foxy employee making a delivery.
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Conceptualizing the Foxy brand.
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Foxy employee preparing a package to be shipped.
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
How it all works
Step 1: New retailer creates a business account. Enters their business information into the online payment processing system.
Step 2: New customer creates a personal account. Enters their personal information, shipping information, and payment method.
Step 3: Customer shops online. Uses the Foxy option at checkout on retailers site.
Step 4: Retailer gets notified of a new order. Prepares it be picked up for a Foxy courier. Foxy provides tools and resources for deliveries.
Step 5: A Foxy courier delivers the order to the customer. Drop off at local shipping outlet if necessary. Foxy delivery couriers go on foot, in van, or by bike.
Step 6: Customer receives order. Satisfied by quick delivery. Supporting local business.
03. Prototyping & Iteration
WIREFRAMES
Lo-Fi
We created lo-fi wireframes to test our content with two audiences. Our objective was to have two separate flows depending on if the user was a consumer or a retailer. This process was helpful to establish the first step of either type of user’s journey based on their objective.
Usability testing feedback from lo-fi
“The Shop Our Partners message is confusing. What is Foxy for?”
“Have an option to be contacted about starting an account instead of just committing to signing up. Clicking Submit feels final.”
“I still don’t understand what is being shipped. Is it supplies? Boxes? Tape?”
“I don’t like the ‘we play the shipping game’ part. As a business owner, it doesn’t sound serious.”
We took the feedback from our first usability test, iterated on our design, and tested it again.
Mid-Fi
We learned from our usability feedback that we hadn’t made it clear enough what the service that Foxy offers is and for who. Our usability feedback also revealed that people didn’t want to sign up for Foxy because they didn’t trust what it stood for; we needed to clarify the who and the what so that users would understand which path to take.
Usability testing feedback from mid-fi
“Why shop by zip code? Consumers want to shop by city if they care about local delivery.”
“The messaging should sell consumers on Foxy, not retailers. If consumers are excited then retailers will use the service.”
“Oh, this is for me, a consumer. But the benefits sounds the same. What is the ‘convenience you crave’ for a consumer?”
“There should be a clear distinction how this works for businesses versus shoppers.”
04. Solution & Next Steps
WRAP-UP
Next Steps
The next steps of building the Foxy platform would include a bit of business sense as well as product design. We would love to see our solution come to light, and would need to take the following steps to make it happen.
The next steps include:
• Expand markets to other locations
• Develop an app for Foxy
• Design promotions retailers and consumers
• Create a business plan