Service E-gifting Website

Overview

A solo founder reached out to me on Upwork about defining fundamental UX and creating wireframes for her service-centered e-gifting website, which had just finished its beta run and was in need of a redesign. The website allowed a recipient to use their gift towards one or more service options, to treat themselves in the way that would be most personally beneficial.

Project Goal

Design a well-researched website wireframe based on the current website's style and branding.

Duration

July 2019 — Aug 2019

My Roles

Market/user research
UX design
Interactive prototyping

Research

Market research on gift cards was useful to narrow the main situations and reasons for people to purchase ‘variable gifts’ such as those offered on my client’s website.

Key findings included:

• People like gift cards for several primary reasons, including the ability for the recipient to purchase their own gift (50.40%), ease of purchase (25.70%), ease of sending (5.60%), and the ability to adhere to a budget (5.20%).
• People buy gift cards most commonly for close family (73%), then friends (49%), then extended family (37%).
• The vast majority of gift cards are bought as birthday (67%) or winter holiday (44%) gifts.

Sources: National Retail Federation Gift Card Spending Survey; Blackhawk Network 2018 Spring Summit Research.

In addition, Yelp reviews proved useful for determining common pain points and users’ experiences purchasing service- or experience-based gifts.

Several common themes and takeaways were:

• Very common gift between significant others, sometimes as a joint experience if applicable.
• Also gifted to friends and coworkers, commonly as bonding experiences.
• Issues with noticing or remembering a “use-by” date and other important policy information.
• Ease of staying on budget came up several times.

Affinity Diagram

An affinity diagram was used to organize findings and general process steps users go through purchasing service- and experience-based gifts.

Defining Audiences

From the research and previous market information gathered by the client, I generalized several starting points for defining the service’s audiences.

Our typical user:

• Wants to find a unique gift idea.
• Not sure a product to buy, doesn’t want to buy a gift card because it’s boring and impersonal.
• Doesn’t want to purchase cleaning or other similar services for recipient because they might take offense.
• Likely mid-20s to late 40s, ~75%/25% F/M.
• Tech-savvy/aware of new online products and services.
• Reasonable amount to spend on gifts, ~$100.

Three personas were defined to represent different segments of the audience, as sourced from reviews.

Christina | Late 30s | Recipient: Close friend | Event: Wedding

• “Fun” friend - gives good gifts, very thoughtful and everyone knows.
• Tries new things, hip to new businesses in the local area.
• Can’t decide what to get friend for her wedding - knows she’ll get gift cards, doesn’t want to imply her house is dirty by getting her cleaners, etc.

User Flow

Full Journey

Riya (Recipient), Husband (Gifter) | Early 40s | Event: Just because/New baby

• Independent freelancer, technical writer at a software company.
• Recently moved to California from Texas with her husband of 2 years in order to be closer to family.
• Recently had another child, her second, about 6 months ago. Gets bogged down with chores and other responsibilities of caring for her new infant while managing professional engagements.

User Flow

Full Journey

Steve | Late 40s | Recipient: Coworker | Event: Injury

• Professional data analyst, works in a corporate office.
• Tech-savvy, casually aware of new products and services globally through various publications.
• Was recently in a car accident with a coworker, who sustained a broken leg. Steve wants to get him something that will help him recover.

User Flow

Full Journey

Defining Value Propositions

Three value proposition canvases were completed to define competing gift types, including:

• Traditional 3rd/1st party gift cards/e-gifting (PayPal/Amazon gift cards, eGifter, GiftRocket, Gyft, various retailers, etc.)
• 1st party service gift cards (Cleaning, Cooking Classes, Child/Pet care)
• Other experience/event-based gifts (Bungee jumping, Concert tickets etc.)

Traditional Gift Cards

Key Takeaways:

• Most versatile, least personal (generally)
• Centered around material objects
• Easy to gift/send

1st Party Service Gifts

Key Takeaways:

• More personal, not versatile
• Opportunity to try out a new service
• More novel than a gift card
• Possibility of being insulting/not useful

Other Experience/Event Gifts

Key Takeaways:

• Very novel, personal
• Most interesting/memorable type of gift
• Possibility of being a social event with gifter
• Requires that gifter know recipient relatively well

Wireframe

Insights from the research lead to several visual and functional points brought into the 1st draft of the wireframe.

• Basic search and results based on person/event.
• Active filter for “Gifts section” - default browse all services - filter by category, price range, location, occasion, service reviews (incorporate from Yelp, etc. if possible).
• Push account registration until as late as possible, if at all. To post-purchase after guest check-out ideally.
• Emphasized suggested services to make it more personal, but without being specific enough to imply anything.
• Website links should be made prevalent, so redeemer can view policies/available dates before purchase. A disclaimer to this effect may be appropriate.
• Consistent emphasis on being more personal/novel than a gift card, and more “gifty” in that they have to get something that will concretely be a gift, instead of just providing another way to purchase necessities.

First Draft

After feedback, several changes were made to accommodate client requests and suggestions.

These included:

• Slight redesign of the “Service Browse” page categories to be mutually exclusive (with one “Browse All” section) as opposed to additive, in order to mesh better with the redeem process flow.
• The “A gift for _________, ____________________.” drop-down search box was moved to its own page, replacing the “Service Browse” page in the gifter process flow. This would display sample services that the recipient could redeem for based on the events selected.
• Addition of text carousels to the homepage in place of the drop-down search box.
• Edits to the “Order Personalization” and “Gifter Checkout” pages to continue the skeumorphic look with more naturalized form fields.
• Complete removal of suggested services from gifter to recipient, to avoid unintended misconceptions about the gift (e.g. that the recipient is messy, an unfit parent, etc.).
• Removal of the gift cart, as the intended flow of selected services to suggestions for the recipient was no longer relevant. Instead, a single input field for the gift amount was implemented.
• Removal of the account dashboard, as it was unnecessary.

Second Draft

Final Draft

After some more back-and-forth, and several more, mostly cosmetic, adjustments, the client was satisfied with the wireframes, to be passed along to a visual designer and later to a developer for implementation.

Conclusions

The short timeframe of this project lead to a more streamlined application of user experience research and design, but several insights and the unique market fit helped with determining best functionality, information architecture, and layout for the website.

My personal takeaways included further development of my process mapping and audience definition skills, early-stage design skills, as well as experience communicating design rationale and working quickly on a short deadline.