HEURISTIC
EVALUATION:
POSHMARK
TEAM
KARINA GUTIERREZ
KIKI HUANG
RACHAEL SOGLIN (ME)
MY ROLES
UX EVALUATOR
UX/UI DESIGNER
TOOLS
FIGMA
GOOGLE SLIDES
TIME
2 WEEKS
PROJECT
BACKGROUND
USER FRIENDLY FUN
I and two other UX Designers used Nielsen Norman Group's 10 Usability Heuristics to identify and evaluate usability issues within the popular social marketplace app Poshmark. Examining a specific user flow screen by screen, we proposed and showcased a collaboratively ideated redesign based on our findings.
PROJECT OBJECTIVE:
Find opportunities to make a more user-friendly experience in order to help those onboarding and selling on the Poshmark platform while honoring and strengthening existing branding and design.
CONSTRAINTS:
-
Time Frame of 2 weeks
-
Existing mobile App redsign
-
Adherence to existing brand guidelines
SOLUTION
PLAN
LET'S SHOP GO!
Rachael Soglin
RESEARCH
Poshmark is a social commerce marketplace to buy and sell new or used items. Compatible with both iOS and Android, primary users are sellers and buyers. Listing details include photos, description, pricing, sizing, brand, and category of the item. They serve over 70 million users across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. They offer a secure and social platform to explore fashion and generate income from home.
Despite its popularity, the app accrues negative reviews based on its overall usability. Because selling on the app was the focus of many of these reviews, we chose to focus on the seller's journey from signing up to posting a listing.
CHOSEN
TASK FLOW
SIGN UP & LIST AN ITEM
1
Create account
2
Suggested username
3
Complete profile
4
Choose shoe size
5
Choose dress size
6
Enter zip code
7
Zip code error
8
Follow 3 brands
9
Feed
10
Add Photo
11
Create listing
12
Additional details
Screenshots from Poshmark Mobile App
We used the 10 Usability Heuristics as defined by the Nielsen Norman Group to identify and rate the severity of the issues found in the "Sign Up & List an Item" Task flow. Each heuristic is judged by severity from 0 - 4, 0 being the least severe and 4 being the most. Severity is rated based on the following 3 factors combined:
-
Frequency - common or rare?
-
Impact - easy or difficult to overcome?
-
Persistence - does it happen once, or repeatedly?
Thinking divergently to cast a wide net to catch our solutions in, we individually crafted HMW questions and through dot-voting landing on the framework of our design challenge.
HEURISTICS
DEFINED
Rachael Soglin
EVALUATION
SCALE
Rachael Soglin
Rachael Soglin
USABILITY
ISSUES
IDENTIFIED & RATED
As a team, we identified 5 out of 10 heuristics that stood in the way of a user smoothly completing the "sign up & list an item" flow. There were no Catastrophic or Major issues. There were 3 Cosmetic Problems and 3 Minor Usability Problems.
We collaboratively determined recommended changes and designed new screens following Poshmark's branding guidelines to satisfy those changes. There was some discussion as to whether it would make a difference to change the inconsistent modals throughout the app - some team members felt this was too small a change to take on and would not produce any relevant positive outcomes. I assured my team that, although this is a small change, it is this kind of visual continuity that breeds feelings of trust in users, whether they notice it consciously or not.
Screenshots from Poshmark Mobile App
alongside redesigns by Kiki Huang, Karina Gutierrez, and Rachael Soglin.
Images compiled and labeled by Rachael Soglin
HEURISTIC
EVALUATION
SIGN UP & LIST AN ITEM
KEY
LEARNINGS
-
Many benefits to users can be subliminal. Visual consistency and continuity within an app are important to maintaining user trust in the product and branding.
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Designing for an existing brand within their established guidelines can be a challenge. Especially because we were not handed any branding guidelines and had to establish our own. This was true not only for the UI and visual branding but the voice of the copy as well.
NEXT
STEPS
-
Craft a more comprehensive UI Library. Apply the “Atomic Approach” to further standardize customizable and scalable elements.
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Handoff. If our changes are approved by Poshmark, we would love to share our UI Library with the Internal Product Team to scale & implement these changes.