DeckedOut is a web-based marketplace through which customers can create fully customized sets of playing cards, trading cards, and flash cards. DeckedOut’s streamlined yet expansive design platform is built for customers looking to create a quick, unique gift as well as detail-oriented shoppers who desire full control over the product design experience.
The first step in the design process for DeckedOut didn't involve any designing at all. Rather, in exploring the challenge of building an online marketplace for designing custom cards, I conducted exploratory research to answer two key questions: what does our potential userbase look like and what similar products exist on the market?
To get to the root of who are users are and what they need, I asked myself some additional questions:
What key characteristics can describe our potential customers?
What features do customers value in a playing card design service?
Are customers looking to design products for themselves or others?
What services already exist to meet customers' needs in this space?
What are the successes and drawbacks of existing services?
Which devices do customers use when ordering custom products?
Name: Joanna Price (Age: 48)
Hometown: Pendleton, IN
Occupation: Public School Administrator, Mother
Joanna is a working mom who needs an efficient method for creating personalized gifts for her children and students, because she has limited time to create these items from scratch.
Name: Timmy Liu (Age: 20)
Hometown: Mesa, AZ
Occupation: College Student, Intern at Kaiser Permanente
Timmy is a college student who wants to impress his friends at their next game night with custom playing cards; he needs an intuitive way to design and order these cards, because he does not have much experience buying personalized gifts online.
In building the DeckedOut responsive website, I sought to address three primary pain points facing customers of online card designers (and online gift designers in general).
Gamers want to spend less time looking for new games or getting caught up with games they don’t ultimately enjoy.
Currently, keeping track of high scores and games played would require players to check individual machines and/or keep a manual log.
While time is of the essence, customers don’t appreciate being told that certain product components are set in stone and can’t be altered.
Paper sketches served as an efficient starting point for drafting the DeckedOut user experience, allowing for rapid iteration on potential design features and layout. These sketches were then translated into digital designs using Adobe XD.
The core goal of the DeckedOut responsive website, helping customers efficiently design products for themselves and their loved ones, is achieved by much more than aesthetics. In order to make sure this goal was being met, before going further in the design process, I made sure to run the site by members of our prospective customer base for feedback. I conducted a moderated usability study with four users of different backgrounds, who were asked to complete a variety of tasks using the prototype in AdobeXD.
Content needed to be "reined in" and better organized to prevent confusion
Some buttons and other cues blended in too easily, causing users to get lost
Users flagged several opportunities to streamline the site experience
Guided by my digital wireframes and informed by usability study findings, the final mock-ups for DeckedOut provide a close approximation to what the final user experience would look like.
DeckedOut presented an intriguing challenge in my exploration of UX design. While I've frequently used online product designers to create gifts for myself and others since I was in high school, I've personally never engaged with a platform for creating custom playing cards. Working on a project for which I am less familiar made it even more important to diligently conduct research and properly empathize with my potential user base.
Creating DeckedOut strengthened my appreciation for similar platforms I've used in the past, such as Shutterfly and Mixbook. Building a system through which users can design custom products, providing them with every feature they could possibly need while maintaining a streamlined and straightforward look and feel is much harder than it seems. Like always, great UX is invisible - you often don't know how difficult it is to accomplish until you try to create it yourself!
This particular project also provided me with my first experience creating an e-commerce platform (including a product ordering flow) and was my introduction to building a responsive website. Designing screens for multiple platforms forces you to think even more strategically when laying out page content and serves as a great reminder to always consider the various formats through which your users will interact with your product.