STOOPED
Giving a second chance to used items.
TIMELINE
16 Weeks
ROLE
Product, UX/UI, UX Research
TEAM
SOLO
This issue is largely due to the rise in "fast furniture"—mass-produced home goods that follow the latest trends; they're cheap but low quality, not made to last long. 80% of the waste end up in landfills, unable to be recycled or repurposed. In more urban areas, where people are constantly moving in and out, more of these home goods are being bought and tossed away just as quickly.
As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. By providing the opportunity to find thrown-away goods (that are still in usable condition), people can give used items a second chance at life in a new home, rather than having them pile up in the landfills.
"Stooping" is a rising trend amongst Americans, particularly in big cities. It's the sourcing of free items left out on the street as trash, or sourcing of items that have been left out in the hopes that they will be stopped by a passerby. Stooping can help save a portion of that waste from the landfills.
As one person stated, "Whether you're getting rid of unwanted furniture or looking for new ones on a budget, stooping can help extend the life cycle of items great and small - and indirectly connect you with past and future owners, too."
I conducted a small survey of people living in New York City.
Whether it's to refurnish and resell or to find a treasure for home, shopping for secondhand items from NYC's curbs has become a more thriving culture as of late.
To get a better image of who I am designing for, I created 2 personas.
While these options offered great services, users also faced many limitations when using them, either in features or simply due to its platform type.
The Instagram account @stoopingnyc is the closest solution to helping reduce furniture/furnishing waste and making an effort to promote a more sustainable way of living. However, due to the platform being on Instagram, it has its limitations. For the app, I had to prioritize which features I wanted to emphasize:
Gamifying the app would encourage users to explore these items, clicking "heart" to favorite an item and the "x" to dismiss it as if it were a dating app for finding secondhand items.
A map accounts for easier visualization of the selection of items near the user; they could also move the map to explore a bit farther from where they are.
Users can directly upload items they find on the street right then and there, without having to go through a third person. In order to incentivize listing items, users are given the option to set a reserve price (safekeeping the item if they can) so that the person who reserves it can come pick it up later at an agreed upon time and location.
I conducted user testing with 3 participants, where I received valuable feedback on what they liked and what they found confusing.
On the discover page, I had incorrectly assumed that people would intuitively understand which buttons meant what. After user testing, I decided to create a short onboarding screen that directs the user to the function of each button.
Based on feedback, I realized there was no clear direction to find messages exchanged between the user and listers and vice versa. I reconfigured the nav bar to include an "inbox" page as its own separate thing and combined the maps and discover page into one.
I decided to get rid of "collections" and instead added "reserved items" and "my listings" as features. The user can now keep track of the items they reserved and who to contact in order to coordinate a pick-up time. They can also stay up to date on whether or not their listings has been taken or are still available.
