Kabuni - Maker Marketplace

This project was proposed to our team at RED Academy from Vancouver-based tech start-up, Kabuni. Kabuni is a online network that helps connect interior designer with contractors and suppliers. Our goal was to design a native app that allows Artists and Artisans to manage their own online product sales though Kabuni.

RESEARCH

Before we dug into our user interviews and competitors, I personally wanted to dig into the artisans domain. It was a complex community of furniture makers, painters, sculptors, and more. Each used their own techniques and tools to create and sell their products. This helped me prepare my user interview questions.

User Interviews

Conducting thorough research was necessary to really understand such niche users. We started with interviewing 4 different stakeholders within the company, in order to understand the existing product and business goals of the maker app.

Next, we conducted 8 in-depth interviews ensuring to speak to users that represented both the Artisans and Interior Designers, that were currently using Kabuni and others who were not yet using the platform.

Competitor Analysis

There were numerous competitors that rivaled the feature we were creating for Kabuni. We made a conscious choice to do two analysis' on our fiercest competitors. The first to familiarize ourselves with the landscape and how the products were currently being used. This was extra beneficial as many of the competitors and their features were brought up during user interviews.

Then we conducted the analysis again, after discovering our user's wants and needs. This time, we deeply looked into the 'jobs to be done' for our users and which competitors were satisfying the jobs to be done.

Primary Persona

Combining our knowledge of existing Kabuni users with our user research we were able to develop primary user personas for both the Artisan and the Interior Designer, with the Artisan being the primary user, but keeping in mind that the goal is to keep their customers, the Interior Designers, happy.

After analyzing our data, there were four frequently reoccurring themes:

PLANNING

Before we began to design this app in any capacity, we needed to determine what our minimal viable product would be, based on our research and Kabuni's business goals.

Data Analysis

First, we began with using mind mapping and affinity diagrams to analyses and interpret our data.

Next we began storyboarding to understand how this app would be used by both users and in what environment.

We held several brainstorming sessions to begin experimenting with possible features that would complete the users "jobs to be done".

Feature Planning

Using the bucket method and an impact scale we identified the most important "jobs to be done" and the features that could help complete them to move forward with hand sketched wire framing.

Even with a lean MVP the app was ambitious and the interaction between multiple users added a second level of complexity.

As we tested our flow, there were many areas of friction and addition pages that needed to be added from our original concept.

We were glad that we tested our prototype early and often as it saved us a few oversights that may have been costly in the later design stages.

After some extensive user testing and many iterations, we began to design out our mid-fidelity wireframes in Sketch.

DESIGNING

Wireframes

Once we felt confident in our paper prototypes we mocked up our wireframes. These were tested then presented to the client and their lead developer to ensure the product functionality would be within the capability of their internal dev team.

We made adjustments based on client feedback and conduced more usability testing on the high fidelity prototype. We tested it with Kabuni's internal interior designers, and 5 of Kabuni's existing Makers. A mere 5 days later we completed the full-fidelity prototype using Kabuni's existing branding.

NEXT STEPS

We presenting the our full design process and prototype to the Kabuni team, and answered questions they had about the research findings and our recommendations. While in development, I continued to be the client contact to answer any questions they have regarding research, design and UI choices.

The Maker Marketplace app went into into development April 2016.