Tool Trade | A Smart Solution for Student Appliances

Timeline: 3 months
Role: Sole designer and researcher
Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Google Forms

Skills: UX/UI design, UX research, user surveys, user personas, user stories, use cases, information architecture, user flows, low and high fidelity wireframing, visual design, graphic design

Students use appliances just like everyone else. Those that are marketed to students are lower quality and better options are not always worth it. Secondhand shopping becomes the next best alternative but is not the safest or most accessible option.

A college student lifestyle means limited resources and opting for the cheaper, lower-quality option for most things. Even when one can afford a better quality option, students are not always in a position to continue using the appliances when they move or graduate and consequently, it ends up in the trash or the back of a storage unit. To avoid this wasteful cycle, students turn to shopping secondhand from peers or online platforms like Facebook Marketplace. These alternatives offer limited options and no buyer protections.

This led me to my Problem Statement:
How might I design an application that makes using and purchasing secondhand appliances a more accessible, affordable, and secure experience in the context of college students?

Next, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:
How do students currently acquire and use their appliances? What might they want from an app for secondhand appliances?

Method #1 - User Surveys - Learn about users’ current appliance situations
I used Google Forms to survey 25 students across various educational backgrounds (undergraduates, post-graduates, PhD students) and 26 open and closed questions about their current appliance habits, where/how they purchased them and tried to better gauge what they would be open to in terms of a platform like ToolTrade. My conclusions from this research were:

Observations

76% of students already share their appliances
92% of students are open to selling their used appliances
88% of students are open to purchasing secondhand appliances
>50% already own secondhand appliances

Pain Points

72% of students don’t want to deal with transport & shipping
Concerns about the legitimacy of who they’re working with
Prefer working with peers from their own college or community

Method #2 - User Personas - Learn more about why different users would use the app and how to cater to them
With my personas, I aimed to focus on two types of users - the buyer and the seller. These contrasting perspectives would allow me to better understand exactly why they would use ToolTrade and what I could do to craft a better experience for them. Charlotte - the buyer/renter persona - focuses on the perspective of a first-year, undergraduate student looking for good deals to find all of her daily-use appliances on a budget for the rest of her college experience. In constrast, Jason - the seller/rentee persona - focuses on the perspective of someone aiming to use it to earn money, not have to deal with storage or let the products go to waste.

*please click on the arrows to navigate between the personas

My research led me to the following conclusions:

Communities provide trust and comfort

College students are comfortable working with their peers and their neighbours so limting a user’s purchasing area to their college campus or nearby areas will provide additional comfort.

User protections are essential

Creepy parking lot pickups are not fun. No one wants to buy or rent something only for it to not work or arrive broken. Providing verification and review mechanism is important.

Flexibility and affordability are key

Student schedules are unpredictable and college is expensive. Giving my users as many options as possible with these two factors is vital to providing a functional experience.

Based on these conclusions, I created user stories, use cases and the information architecture:

The user stories helped me put myself in my user’s shoes and gain an overall understanding of what a click-through experience would actually look like. This proved extremely helpful when paired with writing out my use cases and elaborating on what exactly the features were. Additionally, it helped me learn more about and practice Agile methodologies and made the process of creating an information architecture significantly easier.

*please click on the arrows to navigate between the images

Building on my research thus far, I finally created these,

Low fidelity wireframes, high fidelity wireframes and user flows:

1. The Onboarding Flow

The onboarding flow helps users understand what ToolTrade is actually about. It instantly displays a focus on community and user protection by asking users to sign in with their college credentials to provide an additional layer of security. The last step of the onboarding process also provides flexiblity and customization by allowing the user to choose exactly what they would like to use ToolTrade for.
Images of my process, sketches, and low fidelity frames are visible below.

2. The Sign In/Sign Up Flow

The Sign In/Sign Up flow continues the experience from the onboarding process and allows users to sign up for a new ToolTrade account with their college credentials or allows returning users to sign in to the platform again.

Images of my process, sketches, and low fidelity frames are visible below.

3. The Renting Flow

This flow provides a firsthand look into what actually using ToolTrade would be like - right from scrolling through the home screen to creating a booking for an appliance of the user’s choosing.

Images of my process, sketches, and low fidelity frames are visible below.

4. The Sorting Flow

Continuing my emphasis on affordability and flexibility, I wanted to build out a “Sort By” feature for ToolTrade. Whilst this is a recurrent UX feature in a lot of digital products, I felt that it was something that I wanted to build out for this case study because it strongly aligns with the overarching user needs and focus on financial flexibility.

Images of my process, sketches, and low fidelity frames are visible below.

5. The Renter Messaging Flow

Building upon the focus on community and user protections, the Renter Messaging feature allows ToolTrade users to reach out to the seller regarding their products, better communicate about how the entire process and also take a look at the renter’s profile to take a peek at what other users that have previously worked with them have to say about their experiences. Not only does this streamline the process, it provides an added sense of transparency and trust to the process.

Images of my process, sketches, and low fidelity frames are visible below.

The Design System:

Lastly,

Here’s some takeaways and future considerations I had about this project as a whole:

Short term goals:

Build out additional high fidelity screens for other user flows out
Reduce the amount of text fields in the Sign In/Sign Up flow

Long term product and UX considerations:

What might this look like as a part of a tool or appliance library?
What could I do to make this an even more secure experience?
Is there some additional quality or hygiene assurance checks or “trial run” that could be offered so users feel more comfortable or confident with their purchase?

Thank you for reading this case study and the full prototype and research can be viewed here!

Hello,
I’m Dipthi Dinesh (she/her)

UX Design and Research

1. ToolTrade

2. Southwest Airlines:
Walkthrough Assistant

Branding

1. Museum of Spice

2. The Redbull Redesign

Motion Design

1. Somebody Feed Phil

2. Memories of Mumbai

Tool Trade | A Smart Solution for Student Appliances

Students use appliances just like everyone else. Those that are marketed to students are lower quality and better options are not always worth it. Secondhand shopping becomes the next best alternative but is not the safest or most accessible option.

This led me to my Problem Statement:
How might I design an application that makes using and purchasing secondhand appliances a more accessible, affordable, and secure experience in the context of college students?

Next, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:
How do students currently acquire and use their appliances? What might they want from an app for secondhand appliances?

My research led me to the following conclusions:

Communities provide trust and comfort

User protections are essential

Flexibility and affordability are key

Based on these conclusions, I created user stories, use cases and the information architecture:

Building on my research thus far, I finally created these,

Low fidelity wireframes, high fidelity wireframes and user flows:

1. The Onboarding Flow

2. The Sign In/Sign Up Flow

3. The Renting Flow

4. The Sorting Flow

5. The Renter Messaging Flow

The Design System:

Lastly,

Here’s some takeaways and future considerations I had about this project as a whole:

Hello, I’m Dipthi Dinesh (she/her)

UX Design and Research

1. ToolTrade

2. Southwest Airlines: Walkthrough Assistant

Branding

1. Museum of Spice

2. The Redbull Redesign

Motion Design

1. Somebody Feed Phil

2. Memories of Mumbai

Tool Trade | A Smart Solution for Student Appliances

Students use appliances just like everyone else. Those that are marketed to students are lower quality and better options are not always worth it. Secondhand shopping becomes the next best alternative but is not the safest or most accessible option.

This led me to my Problem Statement: How might I design an application that makes using and purchasing secondhand appliances a more accessible, affordable, and secure experience in the context of college students?

Next, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:How do students currently acquire and use their appliances? What might they want from an app for secondhand appliances?

My research led me to the following conclusions:

Communities provide trust and comfort

User protections are essential

Flexibility and affordability are key

Based on these conclusions, I created user stories, use cases and the information architecture:

Building on my research thus far, I finally created these,

Low fidelity wireframes, high fidelity wireframes and user flows:

1. The Onboarding Flow

2. The Sign In/Sign Up Flow

3. The Renting Flow

4. The Sorting Flow

5. The Renter Messaging Flow

The Design System:

Lastly,

Here’s some takeaways and future considerations I had about this project as a whole:

Hello,
I’m Dipthi Dinesh (she/her)

2. Southwest Airlines:
Walkthrough Assistant

This led me to my Problem Statement:
How might I design an application that makes using and purchasing secondhand appliances a more accessible, affordable, and secure experience in the context of college students?

Next, I wanted to conduct various forms of UX research to figure out:
How do students currently acquire and use their appliances? What might they want from an app for secondhand appliances?