The Process

Everspruce app is a dedicated app for individuals who want to track their belongings. However, when I checked number of downloads it only had 20K. The users of this app loved this app for easy to use and loved that everything you own, you can see on your phone.

During my research, I realized that although designing an app to help individuals to organize their home would helpful, my user research indicated that the individuals are already organizers that the users don’t really need an app to keep track of their minimal belongings.

Then, I looked at other inventory apps and learned that there is a GREATER need in the small business market then for an individual.

Businesses lose 1.75 Trillion per year to out-of-stocks, overstocks, and returns, - according to CNBC

By some estimates, item-level tagging, when implemented properly, can increase inventory accuracy from 63% to 95% - according to Cision, 2015

43% of retailers ranked inventory management as their number one day-to-day challenge - according to Wasp barcode

After realizing that there is a greater need at the small business level, I quickly changed my scope of the project. Instead of designing for an individual, I decided to design for a small business. I defined a small business as an independent business with 500 employees or less (according to the IRS).

The Problem

Most small business owners are losing money because of their inaccuracy of tracking their inventory. “Human error is the leading problem in 46% of warehouses (Software path, 2020)

This problem is worth solving to help small business owners save time in inventory tracking thus spending more time on improving their business to grow.

The Solution

Design an app that will reduce human error by automating tracking systems. The app should be user friendly and inviting to want the small business owners to want to use this app.

Now that I had better direction of what I want to achieve, I did another user testing with small business owners and was able to create a persona based on my findings.

2. Prioritization

After understanding users needs and frustrations, I developed what features this app should have. I researched on what features are used in inventory app and prioritized the features based on my user interview.

The core functions for my app are:

• Add Folder

• Edit Inventory

• Add Picture

• Move Inventory

• Alerts/Notifications

• Barcode/Ticket Scanning

• Search/Filter

• Tagging

3. Design

My next steps involved designing the inventory app. The main focus would be usability that will allow user to quickly and easily enter, modify, delete an inventory.

Information Architecture

One of the major functionality of this app would be to add an item in order to track an inventory. I created user flow and task flow to visualize this process for the users.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

After understanding what users would need to do to add a folder to create their inventory, I began to sketch my app. First, a user would have to sign in to use this app. Once signed in, the user has full access to the app. I wanted make this app easy to use with simple layouts that the users are already familiar with.

Mood Board

Before creating style guide, I wanted to do some research on how I think this app should look like.

I want the app to feel more fluid instead of rigid. Below are some of the mood bards that had the look and feel of welcoming on the right side and felt little rigid on the left side.

Style Guide

Once I knew what colors could work, I developed my style guide to have consistency within the app

Color green is second most favored color in the world. It is a positive color that symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and progress. For these reasons, I chose green shade to develop Tory logo.

Helvetica font was chosen because of its clean lines and simple efficiency which make it compatible with any kind of content that doesn’t detract form the design. This font is also one the most famous and used typefaces in the world which means most users are used to already seeing this font.

Hi-Fidelity Wireframes

I incorporated the style guide into my high-fidelity wireframes. I wanted to make sure when the users see this app that it’s inviting to use and that they feel that this app is their friend. After all, when you are in the business of tracking inventory, you will end up using this app every day. I used colors and section dividers to achieve that friendly feel for the user.

Smooth Login Experience

I wanted to create a login page that is user friendly without any red flags. Since this is an app only, my goal was to attract more sign ups and one of the way achieve that is having a good impression of the experience

Which is why in the second page of sign up, there is Skip for Now option so you can choose to skip providing your company information.

Key Takeaway

Testing & Iteration taught me that there is always room for improvement. However, it is always important to remember why people are using this app. The primary reason of this app is to make tracking inventory in your business easier not harder. Therefore, adding, editing, deleting inventory needs to be tested several times to assure the users of the easy use of the app

Look and Feel

I wanted this app to feel friendly. I used light shade of other popular colors (blue and purple) to give a friendly vibe to the app. During my competitive analysis, I noticed that most inventory apps seem cold and hard to navigate. I also used rounded corners to achieve friendly feel.

4. Evaluate & Iterate

After completing the high-fidelity, I wanted to test it with users.

Usability Test

Test Objectives

• User will add an item to Tory app

• User will add a folder to Tory app

• User will edit/update an item using Tory app

• Observe any feedback

10 users tested Tory app and the results showed:

70% of the users said the app is easy to use, has good clear feel, and looks professional

100% of the users said they would use this app

Affinity Map

Here is the affinity map of the usability test:

It was pleasing to know that the users had a good experience with the app. I also got to learn some of the pain points of using the app and thought of ways to improve it.

Iterate

After carefully reviewing the pain points, I made changes to the app to help improve usability.

Log In Screens

I made two changes after usability test for the log in screens

• You can now log in with your already establish accounts

• Form field of asking for your information is inside of the text box to save valuable real estate space on the phone

The main function of this app is to enter or add your inventory. The usability test showed that people were confused with add folder and add item when trying to add an inventory.

Next Steps

• Explore analyzing tools that has filtering features to pull your inventory reports

• Explore chat feature that will allow the users to ask questions at any point of the use to Tory customer associate