LTK
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UX RESEARCH | UX DESIGN
ROLE Sole UX designer/researcher
TIMEFRAME 3 weeks
TOOLS Zoom, FigJam, Figma, Maze, Google Forms
The problem
Online shoppers are using social media as a source for inspiration and recommendations more than ever. They can spend a lot of time searching the internet for similar products to the ones they see on social media. Often the products they see are out of their budget, are not linked by the influencer, or they don’t know what search terms to use to find what they want. When buying clothing, they find it difficult to determine what size to buy and also struggle with envisioning how to style the clothes they find.
The solutions
IMAGE SEARCH
Quickly and easily search for products by uploading a photo from their camera roll or taking a photo directly in the app.
SUGGESTED PRODUCTS
Discover visually similar products directly from the product information page.
MY SIZE FILTER
Search for influencers who have the same body type to help envision how clothes might fit, what sizes to purchase, and to get inspiration on how to style for your body type.
Defining the problem
In order to understand the social influencer industry, I conducted some market research
Market research
The value of social commerce sales in 2022 estimated to be $958 billion and reach $2.9 trillion by 2026. SOURCE
83%
Understanding the user
IN-DEPTH USER INTERVIEWS
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USERS 6 users who shop online and have varying experience with LTK
METHOD Semi-structured user interviews on Zoom
INSIGHTS FROM USER RESEARCH
Users are often unable to find exactly what they are looking for and spend long periods of time searching.
Users like seeing products “in action” to help them make their purchasing decisions.
Shoppers struggle to find budget-friendly alternatives to higher-end products and often feel like they are settling.
Main insights from user research
Personas
Using the insights from all of my research, I created 3 main personas.
Brianna is a home decor enthusiast that enjoys browsing Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. She is on a tight budget so she is always looking for “dupes” of the expensive items she falls in love with.
Budget Brianna
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To find quality home decor items at a reasonable price
To find budget-friendly versions of the luxury items she loves
To manage her home decor budget so she is not going overboard
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Even with very specific search terms, it can be hard to find the exact furniture pieces she is looking for
When browsing store websites, she is overwhelmed by all of the options
Has an excel spreadsheet for budgeting, a Pinterest board and Instagram folders for inspiration and bookmarked links to specific items she wants to purchase. She finds it difficult to keep track of it all.
Fashionable Fran
Brianna is a home decor enthusiast that enjoys browsing Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. She is on a tight budget so she is always looking for “dupes” of the expensive items she falls in love with.
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To find quality home decor items at a reasonable price
To find budget-friendly versions of the luxury items she loves
To manage her home decor budget so she is not going overboard
-
Even with very specific search terms, it can be hard to find the exact furniture pieces she is looking for
When browsing store websites, she is overwhelmed by all of the options
Has an excel spreadsheet for budgeting, a Pinterest board and Instagram folders for inspiration and bookmarked links to specific items she wants to purchase. She finds it difficult to keep track of it all.
Influencer Ines
Brianna is a home decor enthusiast that enjoys browsing Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. She is on a tight budget so she is always looking for “dupes” of the expensive items she falls in love with.
-
To find quality home decor items at a reasonable price
To find budget-friendly versions of the luxury items she loves
To manage her home decor budget so she is not going overboard
-
Even with very specific search terms, it can be hard to find the exact furniture pieces she is looking for
When browsing store websites, she is overwhelmed by all of the options
Has an excel spreadsheet for budgeting, a Pinterest board and Instagram folders for inspiration and bookmarked links to specific items she wants to purchase. She finds it difficult to keep track of it all.
Competitor feature analysis
With all of my research insights and user pain points in mind, I conducted a competitor analysis to take a look at some features that similar apps or websites use that might help the LTK user.
The two main features I analyzed in detail were how sites display recommendations/alternatives and reverse image search.
I looked at Amazon’s tools to find similar products to buy. They have this on every product page but the suggestions are not necessarily very visually similar to the original product.
On Pinterest and Google, I explored their reverse image search features. They are similar in that the user can isolate specific parts of an image to search for. Pinterest also provides the option to explore posts or shop posts. Their shopping feature is not very robust, however.
I also looked how influencers on LTK currently share alternatives. I found that creators must manually create posts dedicated to suggesting budget friendly alternatives and find those alternatives themselves.
Google directly provides products to shop but does not show examples of a product being used or styled.
Brainstorming via sketching
My next step was to start brainstorming some solutions for LTK. I sketched out various ideas from a budget management tool to advanced filtering options.
I ended up settling on 3 main ideas that felt could best solve the problems I was focusing in on.
Wire flow
Design exploration
There were a few areas of UI on the search results page and the My Size settings page that I went back and forth with.
EXPLORATION 1
Categories on search results page with filter icon.
Related products under post shows number of additional products if you click into the post.
EXPLORATION 2
Illustrative selections for “My Size” filter and all My Size filter options directly on the filter page instead of in profile settings.
Categories possibly redundant and no room for sort feature
Too many clicks to see all products featured in a post.
Possibly overwhelming to see so many options on one page.
Too many clicks to see all products featured in a post.
Prototyping
I created an interactive prototype in order to test the usability of the image search and My Size features.
View interactive prototype (Figma)
User testing
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USERS 5 users with varying experience using LTK.
METHOD Moderated remote & in-person usability testing
TASKS
1. Image search from photo taken via LTK app
2. Image search from photo from camera roll
Filter search results by My Size
Set My Size in user profile
All users were successful in completing the image search via camera task.
3/5 users did not click on touchpoints to isolate trenchcoat.
Possible solution: Animate touchpoints to make them appear more clickable.
3/5 users sped through the feature tutorials without reading them thoroughly.
One user stated that they thought the tutorial tips were announcing a new feature so they automatically skipped through them.
Possible solution: Make tutorial tooltips visually different than new feature tooltips.
3/5 users sped through the feature tutorials without reading them thoroughly.
One user stated that they thought the tutorial tips were announcing a new feature so they automatically skipped through them.
Possible solution: Make tutorial tooltips visually different than new feature tooltips.