Improving efficiency on Chat function in Carousell
Introduction
Every one of us owns some pre-loved items and there is a chance we will sell it away at one point of time. Without a doubt, the Carousell app is preferably the choice of platform — it is an online marketplace that allows sellers to chat with buyers directly via the built-in chat function.
The Process
It may be widely used by many, however, there is a certain degree of frustrations when we are communicating with many users simultaneously— like typing the same queries over and over again with different users, filtering the chat and recalling the person with the attractive deal.
From the start, the team, which compromises of three member — Selina, Shirley and me, establish three possible hypothesis which could be the basis in our design thinking approach. They are as follows:
- Chat filter not visibly noticeable.
- Handling same queries repeatedly among sellers.
- No bookmarking feature to shortlist the potential buyers.
First, we adopted three research methods to substantiate our initial hypothesis. They are listed as follow:
- Contextual findings
We first started with contextual findings to gather some insights on the ways the users would normally used the app to chat and buy. We will set a couple of tasks for the users to perform it so we could observe and record the findings. Certain patterns could differentiate amongst users. - User interview
Based on the selection criteria set by the team, we manage to arrange for 3 interviewees — new, seasoned and occasional users for this task. They are from various backgrounds and will be able to gather some insights on the problem areas that they have experienced. - User survey
Besides gaining qualitative results from the earlier two research methods, we also conducted a survey with 40 respondents to gather some quantitative results.
The Research
After collecting all the data, we created an affinity map to sort out and group them out accordingly to help us make sense of the users observation and comments.
From the mapping, we managed to narrow down three areas that we could do more to help validate it.
We found the pain points discovered are as follows:
Finding #1-repetitive actions
We discovered that users find hassle to manage multiple chats because they have to copy & paste the same queries to different users.
Finding #2-not easy to locate the chat filter
They prefer to have an easier way to toggle between chats as the current chat filter is drop-down menu type.
Finding #3-inability to tag a favourite user
The user cannot bookmark their favourite user and has to scroll through to find the potential buyer.
With the findings from the affinity map, we created the customer journey map to help us understand every part of the chat process so that we could understand the top most frustration when using the Chat function.
Throughout the entire buying process, we can tell that the experience in enquiry can be a painful one for most users. With this part uncovered, we came out with this problem statement:
“How might we help users to manage their interaction more efficiently
to complete the deal so that they can proceed to the next item of their interest?”
From the results of all the findings, we created two personas as reference to help us understand the users’ needs and aspirations. The first persona is a buyer and the second one is a seller — they seems to be different role when using the app but both facing the almost the same problem when using the chat function.
Design Iterations
To gain insights into the usability of the application, we started off by working on some paper sketches to create possible solutions from our findings. Having to bear in mind that all users might be familiarise with how the app works,
we try to redesign it with minor adjustments so that it will be a seamless adoption for all current and new users.
After brainstorming our ideas through sketches, we used the tool Figma to create the wire framing. With the help of the templates, we are able to achieve them fast and accurately. From the wire framing, we can see the usability flow clearly and make the necessary changes.
Results & Next Steps
To see the results, we will bring the final redesign interface for user testing
to see if there might be more iterations to do so that we can make any necessary amendments to it.
“Small changes can make a big difference.”
Though it may be minor tweaks, we hope to see that it will bring improvement in the efficiency and usability of the chat function within the app.
Thank you for your time to read this article and we are glad to share this findings with the Carousell community. And certainly hope that our proposed redesign will bring some significant change in the Chat function.
