Shop Bing

Binghamton Students' one-stop shop for buying and selling goods.

Binghamton Tech Collective is a student-run organization founded in Summer 2023, focusing on creating opportunities for Binghamton students to gain impactful project experience. I led a group of UX designers to design and launch Shop Bing, an E-commerce application that allows Binghamton University students to buy/sell their used goods, ensuring the security of students through university-affiliated email verification.

Role

UX Design Team Lead: I led a team of UX designers to work cross-functionally with the SWE team and PM to research, design, develop, and launch the app from scratch.

Context

Started Fall 2023, WIP
Student Project

Tools

Figma, FigJam, Adobe Illustrator, Google Docs

Team

UX: Winnie Yong, Eric Fang, Emma Sandison
PM: Manjot Kaur
SWE: Levi Lesches, Samuel Montes, Harsh Vaghani, Obadiah Smolenski, Samruddhi Deshpande, Abdulaziz Shaikh

Skip to Designs

Problem

Binghamton students lack a single platform to securely buy/sell their goods.

Students are oftentimes left with course materials, supplies, furniture, and other goods that sit collecting dust. They can choose to advertise their good on a Snapchat story or Ebay, but there's no guarantee that their post will reach their intended audience.

On the other side, people searching for goods like graduation gowns have to constantly search through multiple apps to find relevant postings.
‍

How might we help BU student sellers and buyers efficiently communicate and coordinate a transaction?

Solution

A mobile app that allows for communication between buyer and seller.

After conducting campus-wide user research, I led the UX Design Team in designing Shop Bing, allowing students to list and buy goods while also encouraging communication between students.
‍

Outcome

Successfully launching a web application open to Binghamton University students.

Shop Bing was launched as a web app the following semester! We're currently working on developing a notification system and launching it on the Apple Store and Google Play Store.
‍

Project Process

Empathize

Competitive Audit

View Competitive Audit

We decided to first perform a competitive audit to benchmark our app's features. We compared similar buying/selling apps such as Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Depop, Ebay, Poshmark, and Etsy.

Student Surveys

After comparing existing systems, we analyzed 53 responses from our Buying/Selling App Survey to better understand our users:
‍

64% of participants would sell or give away textbooks and other course materials
72% of participants would buy or take for free textbooks and other course materials
60% of participants would sell or give away clothes and shoes
Students were more likely to buy a wider variety of items compared to selling or giving items for free.

Affinity Mapping

Using our survey responses, we grouped responses into 3 themes:
‍‍

Student Sellers
Student Buyers
Students looking to attend buying/selling events

Consolidating research

Insights

Based on our affinity map and research, communication was the biggest annoyance between buyers and sellers. We decided to split up our insights by persona to have a clear understanding of user needs.
‍

User Personas

We used our insights to visualize our target users and help us empathize with their pain points.

We discovered that our users were:
‍

Casual buyers/sellers
Enthusiastic collectors/buyers
Small businesses

Task Flow to User Flow

As this was our first time in a product-based project, there were some mistakes along the way, with our task flow being mistaken as a user flow.

We used user feedback from our usability research detailed in the next section to revise the user flow, which was then used as the basis for Shop Bing.

Iteration

Initial Wireframes

Based on our findings, we started sketching out ideas before we started designing on Figma.

We continuously improved our initial wireframe based on our weekly Eboard meetings, prioritizing SWE implementation concerns. 2 weeks were dedicated to redesigning this wireframe based on recommendations from our PM and SWE Team Lead.

Iteration V1

After refining our designs, we tested the app’s functionality by conducting usability tests. Our participants included 6 Binghamton students, mostly friends and roommates that were interested in improving our app.

Iteration V2

After revising our low fidelity based on the second round of feedback, we started creating our high fidelity prototype.

Moreover, we conducted another usability test during a TEDX tabling event, interviewing a total of 4 students that rated and provided even more insight on how to improve our design.

Improvements

Based on the usability tests, there were 3 major improvements to our initial wireframes:

Implemented a rating system to establish user trust

Developed a clearer content hierarchy to emphasize important information

Condensed the sign up process to reduce user strain and save on resources

Brand Guidelines

Brainstorming

Style Guide

Design

High Fidelity

We used our research and established brand guidelines to design our prototypes:

Highlights

A single platform

Users can interact with other students, customize their profiles, and buy/sell goods all in one app

Student security

Users can only login with their verified school email account, strengthening user trust

Improved communication

Private chats and social media handles for easier communication between seller and buyer

Reflection and the future

Outcomes

Shop Bing app launched on the web
Over 400+ users post launch
1 of 5 student organizations invited to Alumni Donor Dinner
1 UX and 1 Dev team bonded over a passion project :)

Takeaways

Cross-functional communication is imperative for success.
‍
In the beginning of this project, the technical teams were hyper-focused on their tasks and communication between the UX and Dev teams were exclusively through weekly eboard meetings.

We learned that consistent asynchronous communication between both teams was extremely important to know each other's restraints, concerns, and progress, leading to more informed designs.

Limitations

Understanding the reality of a student-run product team.
‍
There were so many things that we had to learn as we built Shop Bing, such as the costs of data storage, redesigning based on skill levels, and even the process of putting our app on the Apple Store.

Additionally, legal concerns such as the inability to handle in-app transactions or a DUNS # made us rethink the way we designed Shop Bing.

The Future

How can we address discrepancies in the UI of the application after an app page has already been spec’d out?
How can having a “like” feature that gives users the option to favorite products improve the user experience?
How can we build a notification system?

"Work is never done, it's just due."

What our teams are currently working on:

Since this project is still a work in process, Shop Bing is still being improved. As the UX Team Lead turned President of the Binghamton Tech Collective, I'm currently working with my team to prioritize the following goals:

Have Shop Bing launched on the Apple Store
- Since we're dealing with user data, this process has been extremely lengthy. We've collaborated with professors who suggested that we focus on increasing our user base
Implement a way for users to confirm their transactions to provide metrics for stakeholder buy in
Facilitate communication even more through price negotiation buttons or pre-written responses