OVERVIEW
The Problem
People want to find the right pair of sneakers for them, but current apps only promote trending sneakers that are overpriced and high in demand. Having to filter through multiple platforms to find a pair that meets their standards, sneaker shopping becomes a very tedious and time-consuming task.
How might we help users efficiently find the right pair of sneakers for them while steering away from trends?
The Solution
Sneaker Hunterz
A new mobile app that helps users create a more personal sneaker shopping experience, making it fun and convenient to explore and discover new sneakers.
Team
Jeffery Yang, Bryce Yao, Josh Lee
Duration
March 2022 - May 2022
Role
User Research: Surveys, Interviews, Persona, Competitive Analysis, information architecture
UX Design: Wireframing, Prototyping, User Testing
Tools
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Miro
Discover New Sneakers
Find sneakers that are catered to your style with the click of a button.
Users are introduced to a set of sneakers that they can swipe through to see if anything catches their eye. Based on the type of sneakers users show interest in, the algorithm recommends new sneakers that might be closer to their preferences.
Explore Different Styles
Gain inspiration from your fellow sneaker enthusiasts.
Sneaker Hunterz introduces a familiar way for users to browse through different posts to see the variety of sneakers people own and how they match them with their outfits.
Convenient & Efficient Shopping
Searching through different apps and websites gets complicated. Sneaker Hunterz does the work for you.
Upon clicking a selection of sneakers, users can find suggestions on different styles, recommendations, and the cheapest prices in one place.
PROCESS
01. RESEARCH & DISCOVERY
Why Sneakers?
The culture of collecting, admiring, and even reselling sneakers has grown exponentially over time. With high-end sneakers coming to popularity in the past decade, it has become a global obsession. Being sneaker enthusiast ourselves, we thought it would be a great opportunity to create a product that would improve the sneaker buying experience for this community.
$86.72 billion annual revenue
9.26% annual growth
Genz shoppers own on average 8 pairs
at least 30% buy a new pair per month
Market Research
We started our research by looking into the sneaker shopping landscape to see what made currently existing apps successful and what they were lacking, in hopes of finding opportunities we could explore. We found that these apps tend to prioritize trending sneaker releases, making it difficult to find less popular options.
Surveys
Based on what we learned from the market research, we sent out surveys to 38 participants, ranging from monthly sneaker shoppers to annual sneaker shoppers, to find out whether their needs were being met with current apps. We learned the majority of the participants found trends and hype to be an insignificant factor when buying sneakers.
Interviews
To get a more in depth understanding of the user’s needs and pain points, we conducted 11 in person interviews with sneaker enthusiasts. We found that there was a common pattern concerning the difficulty in finding sneakers that meet their standards, with trends being a big factor to these problems.
How do trends affect the sneaker shopping experience?
With apps promoting mainly trending sneaker releases, resellers have been flooding the market strictly to make a profit, killing the chances of regular consumers landing a pair of those sneakers. As the resell prices skyrocket, it becomes a matter of who can afford the sneakers. Having difficulty in finding their ideal sneakers, users want to step away from these trends and have their sneaker shopping experience catered to their preferences.
Persona
Further synthesizing our research, we decided to create a persona to help guide our design approach and empathize with our users.
02. IDEATION & CONCEPTUALIZATION
Brainstorming
After identifying clear pain points and needs, we decided that we could start generating ideas based on these problems. Our group collectively conducted a quick brainstorming session for potential solutions, with our research findings in mind.
Wireframes
Based on some of these solutions, we started generating rough wireframes for the features that seemed more feasible to help visualize these concepts.
Features we explored:
sneaker drop calendar: swipe through previous and upcoming sneaker releases shown by date for that month or year
price comparisons: best prices for each sneaker shown in one place
filtering: filter notifications from upcoming sneaker releases by favorite apps and brands
budget tracking: keeps track of a set budget and suggest sneakers within the price range of the remaining budget
Feedback
To see which ideas users resonated with, we decided to ask 4 sneaker enthusiasts that we previously interviewed for their feedback.
People have stated:
“Other apps already have functions that do these things well”
“I don’t think this would help me find shoes that match my preferences”
“It would be helpful to able to get other opinions on the shoes I want to buy”
Takeaways
While users found that certain features would be essential for the convenience of sneaker shopping, there was generally a negative reaction toward a lot of these concepts. They thought that there were already existing apps that successfully implemented many of our features. Our findings from the feedback helped us realize that:
we are veering away from the main problem of avoiding trends & catering the ideal sneaker.
the inclusion of a social aspect would be helpful for getting information and affirmation on shoes they are interested in.
03. TESTING & REFINEMENT
Upon learning that our initial ideas were not solving the main problem, we decided that we needed to take a step back and start fresh with the feedback in mind. For our first iteration, we created a platform that makes sneaker shopping into a more convenient and personal experience by catering shoes to users based on their preferences and implementing a social aspect.
Key features
Feedback
After prototyping our new design to be fully interactive, we moderated user testing sessions with 5 active sneaker shoppers that previously participated in our interviews.
Takeaways
While users had an overall positive reaction to this concept, they felt that there were certain areas that did not meet their needs, primarily concerning the forum page. They saw potential in the feature, but felt that it would be difficult to encourage users to engage in the space. Without an active community, its function would be unnecessary. After analyzing our data, we came to a realization that:
Being dependent on the engagement of users could make the forum feature unreliable
Making the forum exclusive to friends limits the potential of the experience
Creating an incentive might encourage users to be more active in the community
Users generally seemed to have a positive reaction to our previous iteration, so we decided to push our concept forward and improve upon the successful features that help users find the right pair of sneakers. As the forum page seemed to be the central issue of our design, we made some adjustments with the goal of giving users more purposeful and exciting interactions by encouraging engagement within the community.
Key Features
Feedback
Using the same testing method, we conducted another round of user testing sessions with the new changes in our concept.
Takeaways
Aside from the very positive reactions to the addition of the Cop or Drop feature, users felt that the other new features fell short. Transitioning from a forum page to a Q&A/video review page, people still expressed that this feature was unnecessary and unlikely to be used. Even with the implementation of the badge system, there was not enough of an incentive for users to be active in the community. After analyzing our feedback, we learned that:
We are trying too hard to force the forum/Q&A concept to work
As shoes play a vital role in fashion, users want a more social media based platform for style inspiration
The features should be refined to work together for a cohesive experience across the platform
04. HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPING
While making some major changes based on the feedback, we decided to refine some of the successful features even further to make this product more engaging, fun, and most of all helpful. Our latest prototype was created with the goal of pushing our product to be more user centric and socially engaging.
Key Features
Information Architecture
What Would We Do Differently?
As a fellow sneaker enthusiasts, I realized that we have been clinging onto our personal biases at certain points in our work process. There were times when we advocated for solutions specific to what WE wanted as sneaker enthusiasts, when that might not be the case for others. I believe this hindered our ability to efficiently analyze our user feedback and understand what was working and what wasn’t. We ended up prolonging the process and resorting to taking risks by completely changing the direction of our concepts, when deep in progress.