For a week-long hackathon, our team had to choose a social cause or a nonprofit organization we care about and design a mobile or desktop experience that addresses an aspect of this issue.
We designed a Buy Nothing Sell Nothing app, which allows users to give away items they no longer need to others in their community who could benefit from them. By facilitating a culture of giving and sharing, our app aims to promote sustainability, reduce waste, and foster a sense of community and generosity among its users.
Dive into the visual design process of Loot Swap's user experience. In just one week, witness the evolution from challenge to solution, exploring the mid-fi designs and design thinking behind the scenes.
Engage users instantly with a compelling strap-line, highlighting the platform's commitment to recycling. (And this was before we decided on the name Loot Swap).
Show the unauthenticated user what they are missing out on by promoting items in their area.
Effortless onboarding featuring a swift process, with upfront explanation and agreement to community guidelines.
Decided to make one page for either giving away or trying to find something you might want. Keeping it as basic as possible.
Thought about different options to save space.
The grid page offers a conventional yet effective approach, presenting multiple items on the screen simultaneously. This design choice prioritizes simplicity and user familiarity, ensuring an easily navigable and recognizable interface.
Included the ability to add multiple photos, so anybody looking would be able to get a good sense of the quality/design etc.
Increasing search efficiency, users can add titles to their items, enhancing discoverability.
Users also have the flexibility to manually input a location or the 'use my location' feature, provided they've granted the app access to their location.
They can also set an amount of days for the listing to expire. This is to prevent the app getting cluttered with really unwanted items. They can always repost.
We opted for a tag-based categorization system instead of individual categories, streamlining the user experience. This approach, reminiscent of social media practices, enhances user familiarity and ease of use. Wanted to make it as easy as leaving something on your stoop.
The search bar allows users to find items of interest effortlessly—anything tagged with the entered keyword will appear. For added convenience and inspiration, users can also utilize the tag buttons located underneath.
Items tagged in that area would appear in the results. User would click on the image to find out more information.
User is then able to see the account name of the user listing the item, along with its title, a brief description and the other tags.
The user is also able to bookmark the item to come back to it later (by clicking the bookmark icon in the bottom navigation).
By clicking claim on the previous screen, the user is able to contact the person listing the item by sending them a message.
Feedback from 15 people included two quotes below about the placement of the “Create a Post” icon on the app's bottom navigation.
Initially positioned at the center of a 3-icon nav-bar, we encountered an oversight when adding a fourth icon, impacting the placement. Time to move it back.
To make room we moved the ‘messages’ icon to the conventional placement in the top right corner of the top navigation. We also changed the icon to a more familiar looking inbox.
Posing a direct question led to the insightful response below, prompting us to adopt a valuable implementation - pre populated messages.
Industry related stats on a delayed carousel.
Use map view to explore nearby offerings from other users.
If you’d rather not have strangers coming to your house, set a new location for the drop off so they won’t know where you live.
Look at all that more stuff!
Check the comments to see if another user had a similar question, or ask a new one yourself.
When you see something you like, get it.
Contact me for a comprehensive PDF documenting the entire process, encompassing research, branding, testing, design system, and evaluation.
