Team Tools Timeline
Grace Lee - COO Figma May 2022 - January 2023
Youngjun Woo - Front-End Developer
Kevin Seol - Back-End Developer
Mark Williams - Product Designer
PROBLEM
Annual construction waste is expected to reach 2.2 billion tons globally by 2025*
The construction industry is a major contributor to global trash with landfills increasing year over year. In order to prevent this from occurring there needs to be more systems set in place for companies to recycle.
*Construction Waste Market (Transparency Market Research)
GOAL
Incentivize recycling of construction materials
Make an easy UI for the age group of mainly 50s to track and report order status and payments (refunds, shipping, etc.)
Create a seamless flow between transferring from 3rd party vendors (UShip for freight services)
Easy upload and tracking of products
Allow users to sell construction materials or “waste” that can be repurposed
Create a platform for users to purchase construction materials at cheaper rates
SOLUTION
Individuals or corporations selling and purchasing repurposed materials
DESK RESEARCH
Used equipment market is expected to grow at a high pace during 2021-2031
Starting with secondary research, I began to pull information from research articles to understand the common goals, behaviors, process and experiences that users undergo when purchasing/selling construction materials. While digging, I discovered the high demand for used construction materials with contractors beginning to prefer used over new to increase profits.*
*Used Construction Equipment Market (https://www.factmr.com/report/used-construction-equipment-market)
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Similar but niche business model
In order to get a better understanding of what features to adopt, improve, and design to address user pain points I conducted a competitive analysis on five popular competitors. This helped reveal ways that current products in the market are not meeting users’ needs and define the gap for our product to address. From my analysis I found that our product is similar to other P2P marketplaces, however we target a very niche demographic with features that amplify our platform.\
USER INTERVIEWS
Participants gave insights into possible pain points for different personas
I interviewed about five individuals who either have work experience within the construction industry, are home renovators/DIYers, or are frequent project doers to understand their purchasing behaviors and potential opportunities for improvement.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
What are some common ways you go about purchasing building materials?
Do you prefer purchasing building/construction materials in person or online? Why?
What would make you, as a consumer, more willing to purchase materials online?
After working on a project, do you often have building materials left over?
What are common frustrations you have when purchasing materials? Why?
What are the things you enjoy that make your buying experience better when purchasing materials?
PERSONAS
The team created two personas based on the interviews we conducted and the research we gathered. These personas represent two different types of users: the seller and the buyer.
USER JOURNEY
PROTOTYPE
DESIGN SYSTEM
REFLECTION
What I’d do differently next time
Unclaimed opportunities for research. Every company is different and so is every project and it’s understandable that for a project that has not yet launched, being UX forward may not be a large priority. Unfortunately, I was unable to conduct research at every given opportunity and that may not be common for most projects. Although, it’s something I’d love to be a part of in a future case study.
Re-evaluate my responsive web design concept. Due to the limitations of this project, it was important to begin with the web design immediately and then transition into mobile designs. Although, reflecting on this approach, in the future I would opt for mobile-first designs. This would be especially helpful for prioritizing the content from the beginning, rather than at the end.
