New Metaphor

Background

This week, I worked to choose a product or service that I feel strongly about and use some brainstorming and research techniques to create a new incarnation. I decided to focus on a website called LocalBitcoins.

LocalBitcoins is a peer-to-peer marketplace based in Finland. It facilitates over-the-counter trading for bitcoins. Users can advertise on the website, stating their exchange rates and the specific payment method for buying or selling bitcoins.

Why did I choose this product?

Two reasons why I have chosen to focus this product on this project is because:

• My interest in the fintech space and the direction that it is going. I always enjoy learning about current-day finance and understanding how tech is playing a distributive role in it.
• Bitcoin has started getting a lot of traction, and big institutional investors/corporations are starting to see the opportunity for it.

Objective

I wanted to solve this issue by identifying the main pain points and problems within their current interface that offer a new user’s offer and offer an alternative solution.

Since LocalBitcoins had many different methods to buy and sell bitcoin. I have decided to focus on transactions through Paypal. Since I thought this method is more appropriate for most users, Paypal helps transactions overseas be more straightforward and accessible.

Also, I wanted to focus on the seller’s bidding information page.

Challenges/Constraints

Going through this project, I have endured some challenges and constraints. A few of them are:

• Not having the official design system/style guide, so I had to eyeball all the design components.
• I didn’t want to complete their website and wanted to keep consistency in their design and branding.
• Strict time constraint, so I was able to recruit and test with many users.
• Being a solo designer

Target Market

Next up, I wanted to narrow down my audience. The criteria in a participant I was looking for were:

• Individual who has some knowledge in cryptocurrencies
• Individual who has bought or sold any cryptocurrencies on a platform.
• Has never used LocalBitcoin before

Tools I have used

• Figma
• Zoom
• Google Suite
• Mural

Organizing

Before starting the work, I wanted to organize everything and compile enough information from what I do know based on observation. So I was able to retrieve a few style information such as:

• Color
• Typography
• Iconography
• Common Elements
• Grids

Research (Usability Heuristics)

After I have organized everything, I wanted to kick off my research by conducting usability heuristics for user interface design. To learn more about this in greater detail, Nielsen Norman Group provides an excellent, more detailed explanation. Click here

Just to provide a quick summary. When looking at the interface of the website, the 10 things we want to consider and use as a checklist are:

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

Using these 10 heuristics as a checklist helped me identify a few potential issues or improvements that the website could make. Looking down below, I was able to provide a more in detailed analysis.

This was a great starting point for me to understand more precisely the potential issues. Next thing, I wanted to get more data, so I decided to conduct a usability test with the website.

Research (Usability Test)

I wanted to check my bias, so I decided to conduct a usability test with a friend of mine who does match the criteria I am looking for in my research. The list of things I wanted to understand is.

• What is his first interpretation of the website? What is the website about? How does he feel about it?
• Can he successfully say his process based on limited knowledge?
• What are specific pain or struggle points he encounters as he goes through the website?

With Zoom, I was able to conduct this test remotely and still able to see how he was able to interact with the website and understand how he felt about it.

A few quotes I derived from the interview that I thought was insightful.

“When I first saw the color bubble, I didn’t know what they represented.”

“I have bad sight, so I can wish they made the screens less bright.”

“I wish I had more control when viewing the total amount. Also, I don’t understand why the format looks like Excel but you can’t do any special sorting on it.”

“I don’t even know what some of the columns mean.”

“I don’t know what those colors mean. I think having to make me hover and remember what they represent things is kind of annoying”

Synthesize

After gathering all my data, I wanted to organize everything using Mural. I was able to manage my thoughts and insights by following 4 steps in my process.

1. Self Review — Putting all my notes and insights in one column.
2. Organizing usability issue — I created a Venn diagram where I wanted to point to the specific usability issue. By pointing to the particular issue, it was able to help me move on to the next step.
3. Potential Feature Ideas — Based on all the organized tickets, I put any similarities together and start ideating a specific solution based on those tickets.
4. Prioritize — Now, I wanted to prioritize the list of solutions I was able to create.

Click here to view the full board

Implementation (Final Prototype)

After all this, I was able to create my final prototype based on the features I wanted to focus on.

Displaying Offer Page (Buy with Paypal)

Individual Offer Page (Buy with Paypal)

Additional Redesign

After doing the redesign, it was a lot of fun. However, I wanted to go further and finish up creating the web-mobile experience.

Displaying Offer Page (Buy with Paypal) on Mobile

What would I have like to do?

This was an exciting project and forced me to learn more about bitcoin in general. For my research, there are more parts that I would have loved to explore more. A few things I would have loved to do more.

• Conduct more usability tests
• Conduct unmoderated tests with users for buying bitcoins
• Generate surveys to have some quantitative data points on users

Self-Reflection

When doing this project, a few things that stood out to me the most were:

• Speak with customers more!
• Don’t let design be created with the bias of myself and the internal product team; involve customers always.
• There are so many research methods and tools, but in the end, it’s more important how you can leverage them as best as you can.
• How important it is to prioritize your designs, or else it can take forever to get all the work completed.

Next Steps

For my next steps, I can apply the process that I have done here to my job. This project made me dive deep into the perspective of the customer. Also, I think it’s essential to have the stakeholder’s opinion and voice to the product. I am going to start interacting with stakeholders more often.

Contact Information

For any questions or feedback, feel free to send an email at Hi@christopher.kim