LocalMotive : A user experience exploration

(this page is a work-in-progress please bear with me!)

For my final project in UX Design school, I wanted to flesh out a startup idea I had for an app I called LocalMotive. I felt like there was a disconnect between brick-and-mortar stores and the local clientele who want their products–creating an opportunity gap that no current marketing was filling. I had an idea of how I wanted the app to function, but I needed to put my newly-learned UX skills to work to determine how to design the best possible tool for consumers. 

the Research plan

I crafted a research plan in which I laid out my goals for the hypothetical app:

• to learn more about shopper behavior in regards to in-store vs online shopping
• to learn more about what people find most valuable in a shopping experience
• to find out what people feel is lacking when they go shopping
• to exploit the untapped benefits of local shopping

I thought about my target audience based on insight and research on other similar apps (like Yelp and Amazon). They were: upper-income working millennials. Young and educated people seemed interesting in learning about their area, were people who liked to travel, and used online shopping the most. If browsing through inventory and making a purchase locally were as easy as it was to do online, more young professionals would buy from local stores. 

The user interviews

Now that I had my target audience pinned, I needed to seek them out and ask some questions. I drew up ten interview prompts (which I figured would be enough to get some good information out of them but not too many to be annoying) and asked some people I knew who fit the bill. 

The questions: 

1. Tell me about a time when you had trouble finding something you wanted to buy at a store in your area.
2. What are some of the reasons you might decide to buy something online instead of in-person?
3. What is your biggest priority when you go shopping? What do you want the most out of a product?
4. What do you prefer buying online vs buying in-store and vicea versa?
5. What do you normally do to ensure you are buying the best items based on your shopping priorities?
6. What is the most frustrating thing about shopping in-store?
7. What is the most frustrating thing about shopping online?
8. How often do you have trouble finding things you want to buy in-store?
9. How often do you shop just to browse?
10. How often do you use local discovery apps like Yelp or Google’s local search functions or Groupon? How do you feel like they help you if at all?

Feature 1

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Feature 2

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Feature 3

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