Down Up Down Up - The Ecommerce app for gamers!
This is the final project of my three project ux design course with google! At this point I’ve learned almost everything that an entry level ux designers needs to learn to get started in the world and I tried some new things I didn’t do in my last two projects!
Overview and Where We Started
With this project being the last one of the three you create throughout your ux certificate, this is the project where you put together everything you learned to create a final project that you’re proud of. Which is exactly what I did. The prompt for this project was to create a design and app for social good. My specific project prompt was to create an ecommerce application and website for gamers to buy gaming gear! Being an avid gamer myself, I found it pretty interesting and fun to work on this design.
For starters, I wanted to look at site and apps where people normally bought gaming gear. You have sites and apps from amazon, best buy, and new egg that can help you buy gaming gear. However, not one of those site specializes in JUST gaming gear. They either sell an assortment of electronics or sell things that aren’t even gaming related. So with this site and app I wanted to makes sure I was appealing to all gamers and consoles, keeping in mind that gaming gear is the only thing that would be sold on through this app. After checking out the “competition” I took some of the design ideas from each of them and began sketching out ideas and putting together low fidelity prototypes.
Designing and Process
Throughout designing I found myself running into one sole problem. There are a lot of different elements that go into an ecommerce site. I found myself having to focus on key elements and try not to look at the big picture too much in order to keep on track. I went through many different iterations of low fidelity prototypes, many of which took inspiration from the design of amazon’s application and best buy’s application. Of course I wanted to create something that was familar and still in the realm of my own simplistic and modern design. Looking back to my first project and thinking about how it felt creating that lofi prototype, it’s a lot easier and faster for me now. I also you Google’s material design plugin for symbols which makes my prototypes look that much better and more clean. If i were to compare these prototypes to my past ones, you can easily tell the difference in which prototypes were made at which point in my learning process I was in.
After working through the low fidelity prototypes and mockups I had a couple of users take a look at the app in this stage to test out the user journey of adding an item to their cart. Out of the five users, all of them found that it was quite easy to add the item they wanted to their cart. However some users didn’t understand what lorem impsum meant and just began clicking buttons. Which makes a lot of sense. I may have made this iteration just a little too simplified which I took into account. Three out of the five users also stated that the app looked familiar to apps they had used in the past which is exactly what I was going for as well. After that short period of test, I began ironing out some kinks and started working on the high fidelity prototypes and mockups for this app. I wanted to choose a color scheme that screamed retro gaming. After some searching through pintrest, I found this cool palette with some interesting colors which I feel like definitely gives the vibe I was going for. I also made a simple design for the logo of the app just to give the app more of a persona as well. I made the prototype more stream lined and focused on making it intuitive and easy to use for the user as well. Here are some screenshots of the highfidelity mockups I have at this stage of the project as well as links to the prototypes below.
Large Screen Hifi Prototype: Click Me!
Small Screen Hifi Prototype: Click Me!
Takeaways and Afterthoughts
Having finished up this project in the fastest amount of time out of all three projects, I believe i’ve come pretty far in my ux journey. Of course, none of these projects are really “finished” i’ll likely be coming back every now and then to update and iterate on these ideas as I learn new techniques and gain more skills in my career. Overall, i’m happy where my skills are right now for a starting point and i’m ready to get some work done for clients and companies alike. The biggest obstacle I faced throughout this project was staying focused on the task because the layout wasn’t as interesting to me as I wanted but I still believe it came out well for where I am in my journey. There are definitely some areas to improve upon like the typography in the application as well as more detailed design elements to bring the app to life but where it is right now is fine by me. All in all, this is the last project I completed for my Ux Design Course and I believe it reflects the strengths that I have gained thoughout the process.