A Whole Different Gear

Role:

UI/UX

Class:

INFSCI 1420

Timeline:

Jan 2021 - Feb 2021

Tools used:

Balsamiq, Figma

Project Context

This project was completed over the course of six weeks for my user-centered design course at the University of Pittsburgh. In the project we were instructed to design a website for a fictional business, in this case, a local bike shop that sold new and used bicycles along with maintenence services and bike safety classes. Throughout the course we learned about design processes and various UX and web design principles. The goal of the website was to bring in new customers from the local Pittsburgh area.

Role

I worked as a designer with a team of two Information Science students on the project. The project took six weeks to complete and included feedback and revisions.

User Research

User research was given to us by our professor. With the research we recieved, our group deduced a few key elements to use in crafting our solution. Firstly, the business emphasized community and how it was a local bike store, not a large chain sporting goods store. This is important because the store offers unique services to the local communitylike volunteering to work at the store to earn a bike if one cannot afford it. Furthermore, the owner wanted to emphasize that the store offered cheap yet reliable bicycles, as well as maintenence and accessories.

Approach

Our first step in our solution was to create user personas for the various groups that will be using the bike store. It was important to make sure that the personas were an accurate representation of the store's users, including people from various age, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. With these personas, we went on to create user scenarios of various realistic uses of the website.

Personas of three different users of the website.

Scenarios created using the three personas.

Solution Overview

For our solution, we created a website that was easy to navigate and fun to both look at and use. In addition, we added an account database so users could stay up to do date on new deals and to reserve a bike for pickup. The final site has a sleek design and delivers to the wide range of needs of its various users.

Prototypes of the landing page and choose a bike page.

Prototypes of the account creation page and store pickup page.