Action Figure Collector's App
About the project
A personal project created for the action figure collector’s community which act as an online market place as well as a data book for collectors.
As a collector myself, I noticed a lot of issues the community face when it comes to buying or selling a product, keeping list and track of products we own and so on. So I decided to work on the issues and provide a digital solution.
The Problem
There is no one stop solution for many needs & issues faced by action figure collectors.
The Goal
An app for keeping track, buying and selling action figures from different brands.
My Role
This is a self project, So the entire process and roles were handled by myself.
Responsibilities
Everything including user research, wireframing, prototyping, user texting, etc.
User Research
Research Summary :
I conducted interviews with collectors to understand their requirements and pain points. Most users are earning youth who spend considerable amount of money into this hobby.
They are willing to spend premium price but the availability of genuine product and the increased tax and import fee is their major concern. Even with this unfavourable situation, there is a hike in the number of people who comes into this field. It may be outside the scope of the app to tackle the tax issues but there is always the issue of availability which can be fixed using the app by reaching out potential customers that the app provide genuine product.
User Personas :
User Pain Points :
Increased Price
As the government increased the import taxes on all toys, it has affected the branded toys very hard that collectors has to pay way more than the people abroad.
Availability
Because of the price hike a lot of cheap and bootleg product are available in market which makes it hard for collectors to find genuine product online.
Used Figures
Collectors tend to get figures from other collectors and that has increased under current situation. Most of the time you will miss the sales of such product. But it is also tricky to find trustable resellers.
Exploitation
Even in the used market people put over price on products and there is no way to assume the actual value and no system to control it.
Competitive Audit Report
The audit goal was to compare the features provided by similar app/sites and identify their shortcomings.
Competitors chosen for study are Big Bad Toy Store, Superhero toy store and Fat cat collectable which are all direct competitors of which BBTS is international and other two are local sellers. Indirect competitors include Hasbro and Funko who produce the products and does their own sales. Another indirect competitor is figurelist who are an online database for action figures.
Opportunities Identified :
- Loyal customer community is available for producer brands but not available for retailer brands.
- The Seconds market among the community is a big opportunity. It might not provide much monetary benefits but will keep the community strong.
- A standard system to showcase the product is needed, which will improve the experience.
- A marketplace for multiple sellers would be a better idea, like a one stop solution.
Framework and Prototype
Once I completed the competitive audit, I identified the gaps and opportunities. And I had a mind picture of what all features and solution I can provide. But instead of focusing on all of them at once, I decided to focus on the important features that can create a MVP.
That being the shops, resell store and the database catalogue. Then the focus was to improve the user experience for these features.
So I created the basic wireframes in paper to get the idea of how the app should look. I decided to go with the standard e commerce app look which the users are familiar with so that it will give me the advantage to bring other specific design implementation without users getting alienated with the app.
Once I scribbled the paper wireframes, I started creating the framework in figma. The information architecture was not complex, so I was able to include that in the framework itself. The main pages being Home, Shop, Catalogue and Profile. Then it was converted into a Lo-Fi prototype establishing the main connection. Once that flow with minimal pages are tested, I moved on to Hi-fi prototype.
The high fidelity prototype was made in Adobe XD. All necessary pages for the flow was created and was further moved into user testing.
User Testing
Once the prototype was created, I did the usability study with collectors from the community who are the end users as well as general users who are not part of the community to understand what works out on different levels.
From the data gathered from usability study, notes were taken and that was later used to create affinity diagram. Repeating patters were identified which need to be addressed.
The End Result
New changes and improvements were made on the design and it is ready to go into development state. This project would also need a backend management and some other general screens which should be included in next stage.
The response from the collectors who are the end users were promising and this can be made into minimum viable product.
