Role

UIUX designer

Duration

1 Month (Oct. - Nov. 2021)

Overview

Lost City was a passion project, where I did research, testing, prototyping, and branding.

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This product aims at helping users quickly and easily search for their lost items. My primary target users include people who have lost their pets and those who have experienced searching and finding objects in their neighborhoods.

Type

Personal Project

Tools

Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator

Scope

UI/UX, illustration

Key Deliverables

Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.

Kickoff

I conducted multi-methodology research to further understand people’s unique needs when losing their beloved pets or items. Examining existing social media groups, statistics, related apps, and traditional report systems, I want to build a faster connection in the community to help people, reducing the anxiety when searching alone.

Problem

Most people have common experiences of missing their important pets or items on the street then never finding them. It’s usually a time-consuming and stressful experience to look for those lost items.

Solution

Design an app that will improve the opportunity to find lost items and create a reporting system in the community helping people quickly search for what they want to find.

Approach

Process overview

Persona

I needed to understand who the real user is so that I could provide them with a solution that meets their needs. I conducted independent research to gain a more in-depth understanding of the user.
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Here’s what I learned:
1. Users want their posts to be noticed until their pet is found 
2. When searching on the internet, users are not only looking for physical help but also expecting advice and mental comfort 

Information Architecture

With target user study and market insights, I initiated paper sketches and created information architecture.

Paper sketches

I did a quick ideation exercise to come up with ideas for how to address gaps identified in the personas. My focus was specifically on quickly and easily searching lost and found items.

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Key Takeaways
1. Show clear area and information about the missing item
2. Simple layout for people to post and comment

3. Create a different reporting system for lost and found 

Digital wireframes

After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the Lost city app. These designs focused on delivering personalized guidance for users to search for what they want to find and what they have found in the city.

Low-fidelity prototype

To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype in Figma that connected the user flow of searching an item.

Findings

The main findings in the first usability test:

Refining the design

Here are the main changes I made based on the insights from the usability studies:

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1. Additional design changes included designing different colors for “Lost” and “Found” pages and buttons, providing a clearer indication of distinguishing different functions.

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2. I applied design changes like providing a more intuitive section from the home screen to search lost and found items, also adding texts below icons for better understanding.

High-fidelity prototype

The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.

More findings

After the second time of conducting usability test, I noticed some more detailed concerns from users:

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Final product

I modified the design after iterations and proposed a better solution for solving users' pain points.

A quick search on the home page

• Considering this is a function-oriented app, I want to simplify the user flow as possible. For those users who have registered, the page will direct to the home page after logging in. On the home page, people can quickly and easily finish their first step, determining what they are going to search for.

• The searching bar is integrated into a more simple and intuitive way for users to take action.

Search by area and time schedule

• Location and time are the most important clues when searching lost and found, so I added filters for users to select a specific distance and time range.

• By using filters and the map, people can find their target items efficiently.

Privacy Concerns

• In the final design, people can search in a certain area and customize the radius. On the post, it will show the nearby street's name or public place, instead of showing a specific address.

Accessibility considerations

• Using different colors to distinguish “Lost” and “Found” pages/ buttons for better identification of distinctive functions.​

• Users can quickly switch between lost and found pages by clicking the buttons

Records and Notifications

• Users can manage and edit their posts anytime. Once their post is updated, people who are from the nearby area or have saved posts will be notified.

Style guide

To separate different functions from lost and found, I make distinctive color sets for them. Utilizing bright colors on the buttons, I wanted to emphasize the important action for creating a clear user flow experience. Also, designing a whiteboard-like card for each post, so that users can separate posts in a playful visual; meanwhile, making each post outstanding from others. 

What I learned

• The importance of creating Personas in the early stage, helped me to clarify users' needs. 

• The difficult part of this project might be there have not so many similar products in the market at this moment; hence, my competitive audits focus on products related to the local community in social media, such as a Facebook marketplace or Nextdoor, then try to find out which part is suitable to apply to this app.

• I learned from each iteration and see many possibilities in this product, would like to further develop it in the future.

Next step

• The app stills focuses on searching for pets because of my researches so far. Moving forward, I will further develop the functions of searching items and conduct more usability testings for iterations. 

• Develop feedback and reporting system to track a case is solved or not.

• Improve filter for narrowing down searching range.