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Gift giving is valuable to Americans. Gallup estimated in 2022 that Americans would spend nearly $1,000 on holiday gifts, while a Deloitte study estimated shoppers to spend $1,455 in a single winter holiday season. This is in spite of more than a third of survey respondents saying their financial outlook was worse than the previous year. The gift giving occasions extend far beyond year-end holidays; they include weddings, showers, birthdays, housewarmings, graduations, and more.
While some people may feel overwhelmed by these gift giving occasions, research tells us that many of us enjoy giving gifts to those we care about. Receiving gifts that you genuinely like from someone you care about will also create a hormonal happiness response. The catch comes, research suggests, when givers become anxious about the cost or how the gift will be received, and this can often erase the pleasure associated with giving or receiving a gift.
For this project my client is the developer of Wishy, who created the site to ease this anxiety and conflict around gift giving. I was brought on to redesign the site to optimize the experience for users, as well as create more distinctive branding.
I combined primary research via interviews of potential users with competitor research of similar products. My goal was to understand how people make decisions about gift giving, what challenges they face related to gift ideas, how they feel about receiving gifts, and how they communicate about gift ideas. I also needed to speak with current users of the Wishy site in order to understand their experience with the product as it current stood.
I spoke with 5 participants ranging from their mid 20s to late 60s. They all give gifts regularly for different reasons including holidays, birthdays, milestones, and celebrations such as weddings. Two individuals were current users of the Wishy site.
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Three different persona roles were developed for this project through discussion with the research participants.
First is Linda, a user (older and less tech literate) who's priority is giving gifts, and is less comfortable receiving. She is less likely to make a wishlist for herself, though she would be happy to purchase from someone else's to buy a gift they are happy with. She needs help finding information about the products people want, and the simpler purchase process, the better.
Next is Olivia, and she runs the gift giving process from both ends. She is responsible for giving gifts to many people in her life, like friends, family, kids, co-workers. etc. She needs to keep all the gift ideas straight, know what's been purchased and what not, and doesn't want extra mental load coordinating the whole thing. It wouldn't hurt too if people could actually get her something she wanted this year, so she's making a list for herself too.
Finally, we have Casey, who hates to see the sheer amount of stuff that goes to waste with all these events. There has to be a better way to make sure he doesn't end up with gifts out of a sense of guilt that will just become a chore for him to return, while also allowing that fun feeling of gift giving and receiving.
Once I had a good idea of the motivations, goals, and pain points of potential users, I started to ideate on how to help solve the problems they face through Point of View Statements and turning them into How Might We...? questions.
I used user stories to brainstorm possible features for Wishy. From this, I ranked them into priority levels, high, medium, and low. This created our list of must-have features for this redesign of Wishy.
Since much of the site structure was pre-determined by the client's previous work building the site, we didn't want to make major structural changes. I first started by clarifying the pre-existing flows on the site, for example how to add an item to a wishlist, how to create a new account, how to move and item or delete an item. In this was I could be sure what the currente experience was for the users, and what problem areas existed. After redesigning any existing flows that had issues, I outlined the flows for new features that would be added to the product.
I ended up with 8 redesigned/new user flows that encompass the majority of the functions of the proposed redesign of the product
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Since much of the site structure was pre-determined by the client's previous work building the site, we didn't want to make major structural changes. I first started by clarifying the pre-existing flows on the site, for example how to add an item to a wishlist, how to create a new account, how to move and item or delete an item. In this was I could be sure what the currente experience was for the users, and what problem areas existed. After redesigning any existing flows that had issues, I outlined the flows for new features that would be added to the product.
I ended up with 8 redesigned/new user flows that encompass the majority of the functions of the proposed redesign of the product
These flows guided the low fidelity mobile wireframes which traced the paths to complete each task, identifying how to pace users’ progress. These frames also tested the validity of the flows and helped iterate task processes.In this step, it was helpful to stage out how much information would need to be entered on each screen by the user in order to add an item, purchase an item, create a new wishlist, etc. It also helped to outline the information users might prioritize seeing about each item on the wishlist before purchasing.
After sharing with colleagues, some design elements were added, determinations about page variations were made, and first decisions about visual hierarchy and spacing were made.
After sharing with colleagues, some design elements were added, determinations about page variations were made, and first decisions about visual hierarchy and spacing were made.
At this stage, I tested the usability of the product with 5 participants in a moderated usability test. We tested 4 tasks: Creating a new wishlist, Adding a new wishlist item, Sharing the list with a "gifter" and Making a purchase as a logged out "gifter".
Wishy was developed initially to help with coordinating gift giving ideas for older relatives who are less tech literate, so an important consideration is not branding a product which feels off-putting to certain age groups. The client emphasized accessibility and inclusivity.
I proposed some additional values to represent the site. Gift-givers and receivers care a lot about the thoughtfulness of a gift, about whether the gift reflects a genuine need or want of a person they connect with. They love that exciting moment of finding the right gift for someone, whether it’s a surprise or not. They treasure the feeling of being thought of.
Core Brand Values:
Wishy was developed initially to help with coordinating gift giving ideas for older relatives who are less tech literate, so an important consideration is not branding a product which feels off-putting to certain age groups. The client emphasized accessibility and inclusivity.
I proposed some additional values to represent the site. Gift-givers and receivers care a lot about the thoughtfulness of a gift, about whether the gift reflects a genuine need or want of a person they connect with. They love that exciting moment of finding the right gift for someone, whether it’s a surprise or not. They treasure the feeling of being thought of.
Core Brand Values:
In developing a logo and wordmark, I prioritized simplicity and readability, opting to stick with the Montserrat typography that is used on the site already. I added a touch of wishfulness and playfulness with a golden star.
Utilizing the brand logo, typography, and mood board, I created components for the various functions of the product and developed the high fidelity wireframes for key flows which would then be employed in usability testing.
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Utilizing the brand logo, typography, and mood board, I created components for the various functions of the product and developed the high fidelity wireframes for key flows which would then be employed in usability testing.
For this iteration, I did an unmoderated usability test on maze.co to try to see how users interacted with the site without conscious or unconscious guiding from me as a facilitator. I tested the same 4 tasks as in the previous test: Creating a new wishlist, Adding a new wishlist item, Sharing the list with a gifter, and Making a purchase as a logged out gifter.
Users responded positively to the product's ease of use, simplicity of purchasing an item, and being able to add a URL for quick entering an item. Some comments addressed difficulty creating a list and uncertainty surrounding the "share" icon. As for user errors in completing tasks, some users did not initially see the "Create new list" button at the bottom of the screen, some users did not interact with the share icon to share a list, and some users did not click the arrow button to progress after entering a URL on the "add and item" overlay.
For this iteration, I did an unmoderated usability test on maze.co to try to see how users interacted with the site without conscious or unconscious guiding from me as a facilitator. I tested the same 4 tasks as in the previous test: Creating a new wishlist, Adding a new wishlist item, Sharing the list with a gifter, and Making a purchase as a logged out gifter.
Users responded positively to the product's ease of use, simplicity of purchasing an item, and being able to add a URL for quick entering an item. Some comments addressed difficulty creating a list and uncertainty surrounding the "share" icon. As for user errors in completing tasks, some users did not initially see the "Create new list" button at the bottom of the screen, some users did not interact with the share icon to share a list, and some users did not click the arrow button to progress after entering a URL on the "add and item" overlay.
In this video, I give a tour of the 4 flows tested during product development: Creating a new wishlist, Adding an item to a wishlist, Sharing the list with a gifter, and Marking an item as purchased as a logged-out user.
