Redesigning the gift giving process
As part of my first module at Hyper Island I was given the task of redesigning the gift-giving experience for another member of my group.
I used 5 simple steps to come up with solution:
- Empathy — interviewing the user to find out more about them and their previous gift experiences
- Reframing the problem — defining the needs and insights and defining the problem statement
- Ideate — sketching 5 radical ways to meet their needs; share and capture feedback
- Iterate ideas based on feedback
- Build wireframe and share with user for final feedback
Problem statement
Although Viima hasn’t received a bad gift before, she wants to avoid gifts that she doesn’t need and won’t use. Viima wants to receive a social experience that creates memories with her friends; she likes small surprises and to receive gifts for special occasions. How might we build a solution to help Viima’s friends find the right gift for her?
The Solution
A mobile-friendly website that Viima’s friends can use to randomly generate a unique gift experience that can be tailored to a group of people. The user can input the date of the ‘special occasion’, how many people will be attending, category, budget and the location. I chose these categories as I wanted the user to still have some control of the experience they’re getting and how many people will be coming; giving them the option to create memories with how many people they wish, but still having the ‘surprise factor’ of it being randomly selected for them. The website will then generate the tailored gift experience, that will then link the user off to an external supplier website to buy vouchers/tickets/make a booking for the experience.
The friend can then present this to Viima ready for the special event. The system will save the user’s account so they can keep a record of previous gift experiences they have given (making sure it’s a new surprise for Viima every time).
Find the final wireframe on the Miro board here.
User Feedback
What worked?
Viima liked the overall solution, specifically: The way you can define what you’re looking for quickly, as it saves time for the gift giver, and the opportunity to adjust the experience based on the amount of people involved.
What could be improved?
The gift selection could be refined further, to make the outcome more tailored: user could pick what kind of ‘vibe’ they would like e.g. ‘relaxing’, ‘active’, etc…
Ideas to explore…
Add another screen to allow the user to share the gift directly with Viima via an email telling her what the activity is.
Questions I still have?
Is it necessary to create an account as the first step, or does it slow the user down? Would this be better off as an app instead?
After the getting feedback from Viima, I would also add an email integration to the site as the last step, this would then allow the user to send their gift to Viima quickly and easily. The user can then personalise their message and the date/time they want the email to be sent out — so it arrives in time for the special event.
