Buddy
Making flowers accessible, whatever your budget.
Role: Sole UX Designer -
User research, wireframing, prototyping,
user testing
Project type: Mobile app,
developed as part of the Google UX
certificate
Duration: 2 months
(Jan-Feb '23)
01 / Summary
Project vision
Buddy is a mobile app offering unsold bouquets at a discounted price.
The focus for this project was to give users looking for affordable flowers a slick and fun experience while recommending a product that would suit their needs.
Outcomes
Disclaimer: Since Buddy is not a real life product, I cannot share actual figures. However, we can picture how it could impact both the business and the end users if it were to be launched:
-
Improved design handoff to developers thanks to regular catchups and detailed documentation
-
Faster iterations thanks to multiple rounds of user testing
-
Increase in traffic and user retention
02 / Understanding the problem
Wether you're buying flowers for a loved one or to treat yourself on a special occasion, you should not have to worry about breaking the bank. Unfortunately, this is often the case when users are faced with surging bouquet prices. What should be a pleasant shopping experience turns into a race to find the most affordable product.
03 / Setting the goal
Addressing the high cost of flowers in the market, Buddy aims to enhance the user experience by identifying cost-effective alternatives, ensuring that customers can enjoy the beauty of flowers without emptying their wallet.
04 / Challenges
All projects come with their set of challenges, and Buddy is no exception to the rule. It was very important for me to keep them in mind throughout the whole process:
1
Be mindful of the current inflation
2
Recommend a product that
suits the user's needs
3
Provide a seamless and fast
purchasing experience
05 / Research
To kick off the research phase, I started by looking into the competition, gauging their strengths, weaknesses, and the market gaps Buddy could fill in.
I chose to investigate two of my direct competitors, Interflora and Bloom & Wild, who both offer flower delivery services, and Patch, indirect competitor this time, who proposes a wide variety of plants.
Here are a few of the learnings I gathered from the investigation (full audit is available here):
Competitors' strengths
Beautiful products and pictures
Easy to use platforms
Smart features like fast delivery options and subscriptions
Competitors' weaknesses
High prices
The UI feels a bit cluttered at times
No option to build a bouquet from scratch
Improvement opportunities
Find an alternative to expensive bouquets
Create a clean UI
Allow the users to create their own bouquet
Interviews & personas
Following the competitive audit, I wanted to talk to users and gather their thoughts and feelings about what they're looking for when buying flowers and how I could enhance their purchasing experience. I set my target audience to busy adults with limited time and money and interviewed 6 of them.
The discussions confirmed people are still buying bouquets but less often than before because of the current inflation. According to those users, big companies do not take enough actions to better the situation.
All the info I gathered allowed me to create the 3 personas below:
01
02
03
For the remainder of the project, I will focus on Paul, a busy software developer who loves offering flowers to his girlfriend but does not always have the time nor the money to do so. Every design decision I'll make will keep Paul's needs in mind.
How Might We...
HMW questions are an excellent way to initiate the ideation phase while reflecting on the research conducted so far.
"HMW collaborate with local businesses to source cost-effective, seasonal flowers?"
"HMW offer personalized, budget-friendly floral recommendations to users?"
"HMW offer personalized flower recommendations to entice users to come back for their unique preferences?"
"HMW simplify the flower selection process for users with various levels of tech-savviness?"
"HMW ensure that users can quickly complete a purchase and specify delivery details without confusion?"
"HMW make make flowers more budget-friendly?"
06 / Ideation
To kickstart the ideation phase, I initiated a journey mapping process, tracing Paul's experience, from initial app exploration to his product interactions and emotional responses. This exercise enabled me to deeply empathize with his perspective, understand his pain points, and brainstorm innovative solutions to enhance his overall user experience.
Recognizing the power of visuals and my own affinity for them, I opted to create a storyboard. This visual narrative vividly depicted Paul's journey, from the initial struggle of selecting the perfect bouquet for his girlfriend's birthday to the sheer joy of discovery. It not only helped me establish a meaningful connection with him but also emphasized the importance of stepping into users' shoes.
Persona: Paul, software enginneer
Scenario: Paul is looking for flowers for his girlfriend's birthday
Paper wireframes
Before jumping straight into digital wireframes, I wanted to experiment with a simple pen and paper, for quick and cheap iterations.
Below are the drafts I came up with for the homepage, showing different information architecture ideas. One of the important aspects was to have an intuitive top navigation and footer, while keeping room in the centre of the screen to introduce Buddy and the diverse bouquet options.
I tested the sketches with a few users and listed their favourite items. I gathered those in the final screen, that would be digitalised later on in Figma.
The hero section introduces Buddy and its mission. Further down, the users will have the opportunity to start a quiz to narrow down their ideal bouquet.
Digital wireframes & lo-fi prototype
Thanks to the paper wireframes, I got a better idea of what I wanted Buddy to look like and how it could help users access budget-friendly bouquets.
After a few iterations in Figma, I came up with a full low-fidelity prototype.
The quiz is the main feature of the app and allows users to get bouquet recommendations based on the information they input during the questionnaire.
07 / 1st usability study
Before starting on the mock ups, I wanted to test my low-fidelity prototype with a few users and get their feedback.
Participants
2 men and 3 women, between the ages of 30 and 40, three of them purchasing flowers regularly and two, more rarely, for financial reasons.
Sessions
Remote moderated studies, lasting approximately 20 minutes each, where users tested the questionnaire and purchase flows following my prompts.
Findings
I gathered my findings in an affinity map and decided to work on the most pressing issues:
01
Lack of details about the flowers
Old version
New version
Lack of details about the flowers
Access the bouquet details thanks to a "learn more" button
02
Lack of other types of products
Old version
New version
Lack of other types
of products
After choosing their flowers, the user is offered other product options
03
No option to build your own bouquet
Old version
New version
Learnings:
-
During the research phase, I did learn users would like to have the possibility to build a bouquet from scratch, but I forgot about it while working on the wireframes. This is a good reminder to always go back to the research findings and make sure nothing has been overlooked.
-
It's ok to change your mind during the design process: you don't have to carry over all the features you implemented in your initial wireframes if you think they're not relevant anymore. For example, I decided to remove the pages not essential to the main user flow, such as the "who we are" section or the "newsletter" page as they were distracting me from Buddy's main goal.
No option to build your bouquet
}
The user has now the possibility to build their bouquet from scratch
08 / 2nd usability study & final prototype
After refining my designs, I asked again my usability study participants to have a fresh look at the mock ups. Only one item was mentioned:
"it would be nice to not have to repeat my personal info if the bouquet is for me"
Indeed, I did not take into account the user might buy flowers for themselves and they should not have to repeat their information several times.
The user needs to repeat their info twice if they're the bouquet recipient
A checkbox was added so the user can say if they're the bouquet recipient
After this second round of changes, I delivered my updated high-fidelity prototype:
Play with the prototype
Note on accessibility
Accessibility is crucial in UX design because it ensures that digital products and services are usable by the widest possible range of individuals, regardless of their abilities.
I made sure to keep accessibility at the forefront of Buddy with easy to use buttons and flows, optimum colour contrast and a legible font.
Learning:
It was only at a later stage in the app that I realised buttons should have a minimum size for people to use them easily on their phone. It taught me that each platform has its own set of rules regarding accessibility and that learning about it should be as important as any other aspect of the UX design process.
Look back on the challenges
1 - Be mindful of the current inflation
Buddy offers unsold bouquets at affordable prices. Its unique value proposition fills a gap in the flower market and makes it a go-to app for nature lovers and small budgets alike.
2 - Recommend a product that suits the user's needs
Thanks to the questionnaire, the user does not need to spend hours scrolling for the perfect product anymore. They get recommended 3 bouquet options matching their needs after a series of 3 questions only.
3 - Provide a seamless and fast purchasing experience
Purchasing a bouquet becomes a breeze for the user: the steps are clearly indicated at the top of the screen and a handy order summary reminds them of the info they input.
Takeaways & next steps
Impact
Users shared that if the app were to be launched, they would gladly download it as they could save a lot of money on flowers. One of them mentioned: "This is really nice to see a company actually care about its users' budget while also reducing flower waste!".
Learnings
Designing Buddy taught me the importance of building a solid user research, and sure enough, it kept guiding me throughout the entire project. It's easy to get distracted by the pixel perfect work involved in building an app but we should always remind ourselves the user experience comes first and that everything should be done to make the navigation intuitive and pleasant.
Along with the users' needs, I also learnt that the business goals should be kept top of mind. When designing a product, it should make sense commercially and be growth-oriented. At first, I wanted Buddy to sell second-hand bouquets. How would it work? Flowers used in one-day events such as weddings or conventions would be picked up and delivered straight to the customers. I then realised it might not be a viable concept because it would be too much of a hassle to pickup and deliver, and I decided Buddy would offer unsold bouquets instead, which are much easier to supply.
Doing things differently
If I had to do things differently, I think I wouldn't have worked on the pages that are not part of the main flow. I spent quite some time building ad-hoc pages such as the newsletter or the job sections, and I think it made me lose sight of the main goal of Buddy for a while.
Next steps
If I were to keep working on the project, I would conduct a third usability study and continue iterating on the app until no major issues keep the user from their happy path.
I would also explore further the sustainable aspect of unsold flowers, in order to promote Buddy to people looking for eco-friendly products.
I hope you enjoyed reading through this case study!
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