Community Gearbox
Making co-ownership more personable and rewarding
Startup Capstone Project
UX Design
My Role
UX Designer/Researcher
Visual Designer
Team
Angela Liu
UX Designer/Researcher
Visual Designer
Tammy Hu
UX Designer/Researcher
Visual Designer
Timeline
Jan - May 2023
(5 months)
Tools
Figma
Adobe Premiere Pro
Notion
Otter.ai
Jency Clement
UX Designer/Researcher
Visual Designer
Overview
This project was part of my Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) major capstone. In a team of four, I worked with Community Gearbox, a social inventory management platform that aims to encourage co-ownership and reduce individual consumption as a sustainable alternative to item ownership. Community Gearbox supports people and organizations to co-own and share possessions and resources amongst groups of people they know and trust. Our project goal was to improve the co-ownership processes to be more personable and rewarding.
Design Question
How might we improve the resource/item-sharing process on the platform to be more personable and rewarding than just renting and borrowing?
Developing Domain Knowledge
To get acclimated to the project, we conducted background research into Community gearbox, its mission, application, and target users.
We also held initial meetings with our sponsor to understand:
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Prior user research
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The work process of the company's UX team operations
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Expectations for final deliverables (KPIs, timeline, communication methods)
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Technical and business constraints to be aware of, underlying business models impacting designs
With more operation specific knowledge of how our capstone would operate in relation to our sponsor, we also researched into domains relevant to our problem space, including the intersection of sustainability, communal ownership, community building, and social relationships.
User Research
Research Goals and Timeline
After reading through prior research insights, we found that there was a lack of documentation to support some of those findings. As such, we went through and analyzed prior usability tests that had been leveraged by the sponsor to inform our design question. After pulling evidence from the original interviews, we observed themes, as well as areas to further uncover with additional research. This informed our decision to narrow down the scope of our project into the following design questions and research goals:
Sub-Design Questions
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How might we design a set of features to make borrowing amongst a network of trusting people delightful and rewarding?
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How might we design a set of features to foster and encourage peer-to-peer interaction?
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How might we make the Community Gearbox user interface both visually appealing and user-friendly?
Research Questions
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What types of sharing are users interested in partaking in? (Categories)
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What are some non-traditional use cases for Community Gearbox?
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What are users’ current comfort level with sharing possessions? Who are they sharing with, and if they were to share, what encourages them to do so?
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What establishes trust for sharing items?
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What makes sharing rewarding?
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What roadblocks exist to using Community Gearbox, if any?
From there, we identified and narrowed down the range of methodologies we would leverage to answer these research questions, address our design question, and develop a final project. We then developed and iterated on a timeline for implementing these methodologies.
Utilizing Prior and New User Research
To answer our research questions, we went through three rounds of user research: sponsor-conducted usability tests, sponsor-conducted REI discovery interviews, and capstone team-conducted user interviews.
Sponsor-Conducted Usability Tests
We analyzed 5 of 22 usability tests previously conducted by our sponsor to test out the core functionality of the app.
Who?
Potential users recruited through co-founders' extended network
(3 Customers, 2 UX/UI Designers).
To understand...
Usability roadblocks to using Community Gearbox; users' underlying thought processes related to sharing that uncover the types of sharing of interest and their comfort level with sharing.
Sponsor-Conducted REI Discovery Interviews
We partook in and analyzed 7 of 76 discovery interviews conducted by one Community Gearbox co-founder as part of the REI Embark Accelerator Program.
Who?
Potential users who are a part of outdoor or disaster relief organizations and/or are interested in co-ownership and circular economy.
To understand...
Types of sharing partaken in, groups/specific people shared and borrowed with, the circumstances in which they've shared and borrowed the most, their last and worst sharing/borrowing experiences; we analyzed these interviews with the goal of gain additional insight into our first two research questions.
Capstone Team-Conducted User Interviews
We conducted 4 user interviews to dive deeper into our research questions.
Who?
Potential users ages of 19-25 to balance out the demographic of user research participants (Previous interviews were largely conducted with users of a higher age range).
To understand...
Motivators and deterrents to sharing, factors impacting quality of past sharing and borrowing experiences by discussing their worst, best and most memorable borrowing and sharing experiences, why people want to or don't want to share/borrow, whether or not closeness of relationship impacts sharing and which ways, etc.
By affinity diagramming key observations across all three user research stages, we found the following insights below.
Research Findings
We extracted 12 research insights around themes of trust involved with sharing, motivators for sharing, logistical concerns when borrowing and sharing, community building, UI and usability issues, and impressions of Community Gearbox's brand. Based on the research insights, we created design requirements to guide ideating a solution addressing user pain points and desires key to making the sharing and borrowing process more personable and rewarding. Below are some examples.
Trust and Motivation
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3 participants indicated greater discomfort with sharing with strangers. One suggested that they would need some sort of deposit to feel comfortable sharing with a stranger.
Participants expressed a desire for accountability systems to be in place to build trust - including rating systems, deposits, card information.
Design Requirement
Incorporate features and/or an accountability system to build trust
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Participants were the most motivated to lend things to others out of a desire to help them, especially if there’s a need.
Participants expressed that hearing people’s circumstances/stories often motivates them to want to lend to help. One participant expressed: “There was someone who asked for a few favors and [it] felt inconvenient to help, but after I heard her story, I was all for helping her.”
Design Requirement
Incorporate features that help to facilitate and encourage borrowers sharing with lenders how having access to their items helps them
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The inconvenience of picking up and dropping off items deters participants from wanting to lend items.
Design Requirement
Increase the control lenders have over the process of picking up and dropping off items borrowed for greater convenience
User Journey Maps
We created two in-depth user journey maps based on our user research to concretize the key pain points to address along the sharing/borrowing processes. We mapped the experiences of the two parties involved in the same exchange: a borrower and a lender. We based this scenario off of participants' worst sharing experiences; in this scenario, the lender shares an item with a friend of a friend who returns the item back damaged.
Prioritization Grid
Through our user journey maps, we identified areas of opportunity for making the borrowing/sharing process more rewarding and personable. We then determined which opportunities and features to move forward with based on their potential impact towards our design question and the feasibility of implementation. We engaged our sponsor in this process to ensure alignment.
We scoped down to three features: Unlisted Items Requests Form, Exchange Statuses within the Exchanges Page, and Badges.
Unlisted Items Requests Form
With this feature, users can request to borrow items that are currently not on the app. Being able to ask for items currently not shared among their communities works to make the borrowing and lending process more personable, as users know they can lean on their community when they are in need of an item. Based on our user research, community members who then share the items are rewarded knowing that they helping a community member. This feature is especially important because the app is new and many items have yet to be added by community members.
We decided to redesign this feature to be fully developed and to guide users to include key details for encouraging other users to share the needed items.
Heuristic Evaluation
Because several usability issues were revealed in usability tests our sponsor previously conducted, we did a heuristic evaluation of the whole app to identify key usability issues to resolve in our proposed designs. We leveraged Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics and severity rating scale for our evaluation.
Additionally, our heuristic evaluation was also used by our sponsor to make immediate changes to the next release of their app in mid-May.
Ideation
Having identified the three features of focus, we proceeded through several rounds of ideation for each feature using the Crazy Eights method. We identified attributes of our ideated designs to proceed with through critique sessions for each feature based on their potential impact indicating by our user research insights and design requirements, as well feasibility.
To the right are some examples of sketches I ideated.
User Flows & Information Architecture
We also developed user flows to pinpoint and simplify the user experiences involved for the three features. This was especially important for the flows involving exchanges and badges to ensure a cohesive experience across both lenders and borrowers at each state of an exchange.
Additionally, we made significant changes to the information architecture of the Community Gearbox app, motivated by prior usability tests revealing that participants wanted to be able to access content, such as exchanges, more easily. We simplified the IA by changing the navigation system from a top left hamburger menu and bottom navigation bar to a single bottom navigation bar. We moved core content, such as exchanges and messages, to be more upfront and easily accessible.
Mid-Fidelity Prototyping
We then iteratively designed the screens pinpointed in the user flows to create a mid-fidelity prototype. Along the way, we all provided feedback on each others' designs to create a cohesive experience. I focused largely on the home screen, search, unlisted item request pages.
Usability Testing
We conducted one pilot test and five 45-min to 1-hour usability tests, recruiting both participants who were and were not familiar with Community Gearbox and the overall concept of their app. We tested 15 tasks across the app, including tasks related to searching for and requesting unlisted items, fulfilling unlisted item requests, going through the borrowing/lending process within the exchanges page, and navigating profile and community group pages.
Below are some examples of the resulting findings and changes I made to our mid-fi prototype.
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Participants expressed confusion about the meaning of terminology and iconography used, including "friends", “communities”, and “requests.” For instance, after making a search that generates 0 results, participants were confused about who were considered to be friends, what communities were, and what requests were.
Changes Made
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Redefined friends in relation to communities
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Redefined unlisted item requests as item wishes ("wish for an item"); previously "requests" was used to describe several user actions (e.g., requests also referred to the notifications lenders received from people asking to borrowing one of their existing items)
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Changed iconography for item wishes
Final Product
Based on the usability testing results, we iterated on the designs to create a high-fi prototype. Below is a second iteration of the prototype I made to further refine the experience by creating more consistency across messaging interactions, animations, and graphics.
We also created a video prototype showcasing the final product.
Design Decisions
Below, I've broken down a series of screens to explain our design decisions.
Search
Searching for an Item
If a user is looking for an item to borrow, but finds that no one in their communities has shared it, they can take several courses of action.
Users can (1) set up alerts for when an item matching their search inquiry is added and/or (2) see if anyone in their communities has the item by making an item wish post.
Users can access making an item wish through several entry points, including under the search results page, Community Item Wishlist section on the home page, individual community group pages, and Community Item Wishlist page.
Reflection
This project was a culmination of the Human-Centered Design skills I had developed during my time in the University of Washington HCDE department and while interning concurrently.
I gained more experience with skills such as consolidating and making designs cohesive across several designers, communicating design decisions to non-designer stakeholders, gaining alignment with stakeholders, developing project timelines and strategies for project time management, and working with an existing design system. I also gained an inside view of what operations at a start-up up can look like.
I enjoyed working on a project that has the potential to positively impact the environment by encouraging increased co-ownership and reduced individual consumerism.
If we had more time, I would propose:
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Conducting a card-sorting activity to further refine the information architecture of the exchanges page
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A/B testing several flows, such as different versions of the item wish form and appreciation messages
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Conducting more user research to further our last user research question of "What roadblocks exist to using Community Gearbox, if any?" (e.g., exploring potential impacts of socioeconomic backgrounds, location, and more on users' experiences with Community Gearbox and what makes the lending/sharing process more rewarding and personable)
Other Work
© 2020 by Emma Sadjo.