OVERVIEW—
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted small businesses nationally. How can we help?
In midst of a global pandemic, US small businesses face muted demands, new customer expectations, and most importantly, operational challenges while pivoting to online platforms. As a class project, my team and I were challenged to redesign a feature of a widely-used online product to address problems for small businesses.
**This project was created just before Instagram’s most recent redesign.
Role: Product Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline: Oct 2020 - Dec 2020, 8 weeks
Tools: Figma, Miro, Zoom
Collaborators: Nicolette Shin, Joanna Lu
Overview of our team’s process
THE PROBLEM—
How might we further extend Instagram’s Shop feature to increase the discoverability of small businesses and local services?
Why Instagram?
With ~1 billion active users, Instagram supports many features, as Reels, IGTV, and IG Shop. 70% of shopping enthusiasts turn to Instagram for product discovery and many small businesses rely on Instagram to gain exposure. With this, we want to maximize the marketing potential IG Shop by featuring local businesses, adding service-oriented Instagram accounts, and empowering hobbyists to kickstart their own small business.
USER RESEARCH—
Assessing how small business owners rely on IG for operation and marketing
Our research goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the sentiments of both small business owners and supporters of small businesses. We were interested in seeing how both user groups use Instagram and finding a point of connection between the two groups.
1. Active Instagram users (N=15)
We surveyed people (varying demographics) who have made a purchase from a small business using Instagram. Our goal is to consumer experience with Instagram in the context of shopping.
2. Small businesses owners (N=9)
We interviewed business owners from different categories (fashion, freelance design, arts/crafts, hair&nails). Our goal was to assess how businesses rely on Instagram for operation and marketing and see what they want to see more of out of Instagram Shop.
**Due to unavailability, 4 businesses were not able to participate in face-to-face interviews. We sent our questions to them and received written responses.
KEY INSIGHTS—
Not a lot of opportunities for service-oriented businesses
Instagram Shops only feature products, mostly of larger businesses.
Due to IG’s algorithm, businesses have a hard time reaching wider audiences
To maintain a following and keep engagement, small businesses owners must constantly post content and interact with followers, which is very time consuming.
There’s a lost point of connection between small businesses and those want to support.
Many Instagram users want to support, but don’t know where to find small businesses.
“Instagram requires you to constantly create new content, and even then it still does not have as much reach as larger businesses” —Alex, @alexdoesstuff
USER PERSONAS—
IDEATION—
What are some central goals to focus on?
From our user insights and personas, we chose to focus on the following goals when creating initial sketches and lo-fi prototypes:
How can IG shop better showcase small businesses?
How can we increase IG Shop’s discoverability?
What would a service listing look like?
Creating 2 user flows
Following our ideation process, my team and I created user flows for two distinct solutions to the problem. We wanted to seamlessly integrate reminders and call-to-actions for Instagram users to support small businesses.
Lo-fi Prototyping
Using the user flows, we used paper sketches to visualize our idea. We then created lo-fi prototypes while keeping the 3 goals we established in mind. Below, I have annotated screens with the goals each screen addresses.
I created Flow 1. This caters to our personas Sophia and Jill as it helps users easily find small businesses. The entry point is the explore page, will include a carousel of businesses. By clicking on the carousel, the user will be taken to a directory of recommended businesses and small businesses will be identified with a badge. Profiles indicates number of friends that have also supported each business. Users can have the option to view item listings or visit profile. Listing item are displayed in a grid format to showcase item images.
Flow 2 caters to our personas Joey and Jill as it highlights small businesses specifically encourages users to shop small. The entry point is on the user’s feed, where there will be a CTA for users to browse small businesses. This flow is specifically beneficial for service-based owners like Joey because it provides a category for services when browsing through shops. Listings also includes descriptions, which benefits services.
USER TESTING INSIGHTS—
We tested our solutions on frequent Instagram users to assess how well our design addresses our goals.
Goal #1: Showcasing small businesses
3/3 users agree that a separate page for small businesses allow more freedom of options for users.
We will create a page specifically for showcasing small businesses, which can be accessed via IG Shop.
2/3 users were confused on what the “small business” symbol meant.
We will move away from the badge idea and think of another way for users to find small business.
Goal #2: Improving IG Shop discoverability
3/3 users successfully navigated to IG Shops through the explore page, but 2/3 users state they do not regularly check the explore page.
2/3 users did not engage with banner on their feed, stating that the banner is not personalized and does not catch the eye.
We will create a more engaging banner on user’s feed, since the feed experience higher user traffic.
Goal #3: Thinking about service-based businesses
3/3 users agree that the descriptions in the list format is inclusive for services.
2/3 still prefer the grid format. Grid format feels less text-heavy and more suited for photo-based app like IG.
We will integrate descriptions into the grid format.
ITERATION—
After 2 more round of iteration and user testing, we ended with a final prototype based on a cumulation of user feedback.
What were our design decisions?
IG Shop Promotion on Home Page
Promote Small Businesses on IG Shop
Curated Small Business Page
Showcasing Products/Services Effectively
FINAL PROTOTYPE—
Redesigning Instagram Shops: allowing more discovery for small businesses
Increasing Visibility Through User’s Feed
We chose to highlight small businesses in the form of a post on the home page. Users view a curated carousel of businesses and the last page provides an entry point browse all small businesses.
What informed this?
User feedback suggests that the carousel catches users’ attention, but is not intrusive, especially if featured businesses is curated to user’s interest.
2/3 users noted that the banner display provides the ability to browse other businesses, but the posts only allow users to view specific businesses.
Highlighting Small Businesses on IG Shop
Small Businesses are highlighted as a tab for easy access. A section specifically showcasing small businesses encourages users to quickly browse, find, and follow small businesses. Business profiles indicate friends who have made purchases.
What informed this?
User feedback suggested that showcasing multiple businesses in a carousel allows for easy browsing. 3/3 users actively engaged with the “Support Small Businesses” section.
2/3 users states that they like to follow small business to show their support.
3/3 users stated that they are more likely to view businesses where their friends or favorite influencers have supported.
Item and Service Listings
Items listing page includes business bio to provide introduction for the user. To cater to service-based businesses, listings include a short description while keeping a grid format to highlight the photo. Business profiles display a badge to indicate that it’s a small business.
What informed this?
3/3 users mentioned they are more likely to purchase if they know background/purpose of small businesses.
Users preferred the grid format, which focuses on the image. However, 3/3 users stated that have descriptions is important for businesses.
REFLECTION—
Design. Test. Iterate
This process showed me the importance of testing and iterating on our designs. Though I originally thought it was tedious to go through the same process 3 times, I now understand that testing and iterating allows for the most user-driven results. Throughout the processes, our team ran into many hiccups (we did not know how go about our solution, we made many unsatisfactory designs, users did not respond as we expected, etc.), but all these hiccups challenged us to improve and provide the best end result.
Bottom line, the design process is not always linear, and that’s okay.
User Experience vs. Business Goals
A main challenge I ran into during this project is balancing the interests of 2 different users: the small business-owners and regular IG-users. For example, sometimes our user feedback didn’t align with our project goals, which made it really hard when making design decisions. This taught me to think critically on the implications and ethics of my designs. Lastly, I learned a lot on staying within an app’s current design system.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS—
I would like to thank Professor Guo and his teaching staff (specifically our mentor Nhu) for guiding my team and I through this process. I learned so much about team collaboration and project management through this project. I would also like to thank my peers for providing valuable feedback that determined the direction of out final design.
Lastly, I would like to shout out the following businesses for taking their time to provide insights and supporting us along the way: @shopjazzythread, @kindnessthreads, @alexdoesstuff, @faji_studios, @lashrefineryed, @horrorvacuiworld.