EVELIN

SZÁSZ

UI

UX

DESIGNER

OVERVIEW

THE PRODUCT

Thriftstudio is an e-commerce website for a fictional local thrift store, offering an extensive range of clothing and accessories for men, women, and kids, from fast fashion to luxury brands. Designed to provide a flexible and comfortable shopping experience through convenient filters, personalized notifications on new arrivals and sales, with the option for home delivery or in-store pickup, the website and app bring the joy of thrift shopping right to the users’ fingertips.

THE PROBLEM

Users shopping in thrift stores often face frustration due to the lack of flexibility in shopping at their own convenience, missing out on discounts, and spending excessive time searching for items, verifying sizes, labels, and prices.

THE SOLUTION

Design a responsive website to offer users a flexible and fulfilling shopping experience from their local thrift store, with an additional admin page for the thrift store’s employees, where they can easily add, edit and manage the shop’s products and discounts.

ROLE

UI UX Designer

TOOLS

Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator

CONTEXT

Google UX Certificate Project

RESEARCH

METHOD 1.

INTERVIEW

RESEARCH GOALS

  • exploring how users shop at thrift stores
  • identifying gaps in the online stores they use
  • discovering ways to enhance their shopping experience
  • understanding their difficulties with online shopping
  • identifying challenges they face while shopping in person

I conducted interviews to understand the users I’m designing for and their needs. A primary user group identified through research was adults who don’t have time to go thrift shopping. This user group confirmed initial assumptions about thrift store customers, but research revealed that time was not the only factor limiting users from going to thrift stores. Other user problems included obligations, interests, or challenges that make it difficult to go to thrift stores in person, or to catch periodic sales and new arrivals.

PAIN POINTS

Working adults are too busy to spend time on thrift shopping in person

Price, size and labels are often difficult to find or understand in thrift stores

Not being able to keep up with discounts, missing them entirely or best items being already sold

USER PERSONA

"I love the idea of thrift shops! I just wish I could rummage online."
user persona
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PROBLEM STATEMENT

Romy is a busy student, who needs quick and easy online access to the thrift store, because she doesn’t have time to thrift in person.

USER JOURNEY MAP

user journey map
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METHOD 2.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

  • GENERAL INFORMATION
  • FIRST IMPRESSIONS
  • INTERACTION
  • VISUAL DESIGN
  • CONTENT
competitive analysis
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Some gaps I identified:

Competitor products don’t offer an online thrift shop linked to a physical store

Competitor products provide ordering only through an account

Wishlist, Cart and Filter features are not optimized enough for a fast and seamless shopping experience

Some opportunities I identified:

Building a responsive website for a thrift store, where customers can see the physical store’s actual products

Enabling quick, account-free purchases

Offering personalized notifications for discounts and new arrivals based on filters saved by the user

Providing bulk-edit in Wishlist and Cart pages

IDEATE

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Based on my research, I identified the need for a flexible and efficient product search experience, alongside a streamlined checkout process, to maximize user satisfaction. Understanding who the users are, what they seek, and how quickly they can achieve their goals was central to shaping the website’s structure. To achieve this, I prioritized presenting critical information and enabling multiple browsing options directly within the hero section, ensuring easy access from the moment users arrive. Each subsequent step in the user journey was designed to be seamless, intuitive, and logical. My guiding principle for developing the information architecture was to create an experience that feels both unique and delightful, catering effectively to the needs of both new and returning users.

SITEMAP

The following Sitemap outlines the main sections and pages of the thrift store website. It is designed to prioritize easy access to key functions like searching for specific items based on previously saved filters, browsing inventory, and checking out.

site map
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USER FLOW

The primary path to browsing and purchasing a desired item from the thrift store website

user flow
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STORYBOARDS

The user flow provided a blueprint for how users navigate through the website to find and purchase products. The following storyboards illustrate this journey in a real-life context, showing how users interact with the platform and the environment in which they are using it. While the user flow focuses on the interactions within the digital space, the storyboards depict the emotions, motivations, and external factors that shape the overall experience.

SCENARIO:

A WEBSITE THAT ALLOWS USERS TO QUICKLY SHOP FROM THE THRIFT STORE ON THE GO

BIG PICTURE STORYBOARD
user flow
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CLOSE-UP STORYBOARD
user flow
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