Take the stress out of your next move.
About Viva Sort
A mobile-first site that eases the stress of moving by matching users with templates, timelines, and other resources that meet their unique needs.
Tools
Figma, Optimal Sort, Maze
Duration
May - September 2022
Type
Solo conceptual project
Role
UX Researcher & Designer
Design Process
Discover
Moving can be a stressful, deeply emotional experience. Whether moving across town or across the country, planning a move requires time, patience, and energy. Many people are unsure where to even begin when it comes to goal setting, gathering resources, and packing.
To set the foundation for impactful research, I set the goal to understand the emotions and pain points encountered by individuals as they pack, move, and unpack. These could be bucketed in the following objectives:
Understand the emotions related to moving
Learn about the current solutions on the market
Glean insights from participants’ past experiences
Secondary Research
Moving is generally considered to be an emotionally significant experience. The Worldwide Employee Relocation Council, an American organization concerned with employee moves, considers moving to be the third most stressful life event. If you have planned at least one move in your life, the topic alone might trigger your fight or flight.
So why do we all seem to agree that moving is the worst? Sarah Kershaw explored this in her article The Psychology of Moving, published in the New York Times in 2010:
“Packing and sorting through a life’s worth of belongings — especially, say, if the move is the unhappy result of a divorce or other trauma — can be gut-wrenching.”
These moves don’t exist in a vacuum so we can’t isolate the process of planning, packing, and unpacking from the circumstances that spurred this change. I began to wonder what could be done to make the planning easier and what products already exist to alleviate this stress.
Competitive Analysis
It turns out that there are a plethora of products on the market that promise to make your next move easier. Most focus on a specific area of the move, like hiring movers or cataloging possessions. I looked at both direct and indirect competitors to see what works well and what gaps exist.
User Interviews
With a better understanding of the problem and existing solutions on the market, I recruited seven participants who had moved in the past five years to answer key questions about their recent moving experiences. The goal here was to learn about the approach, road blocks, and emotions associated with these moves. All but one were living in the greater NYC area. Two were homeowners, while the rest were renters.
I used Calendly to coordinate the sessions, which took place over Google Meet. The audio was transcribed using Otter AI.
Commonalities
Best intentions
Friends and family provided help and encouragement
A lack of confidence in creating a timeline, gathering resources, and packing securely
Nostalgia
Differences
Vastly different levels of organization
Experiences with movers ranged from phenomenal to just plain awful
Differing access to resources
A variety of timelines
Define
Affinity Mapping
I had gathered so many helpful insights during the user interviews. The next step was synthesizing this data, which I did using the affinity mapping method. This allowed me to group similar observations and quotes to identity overarching themes.
See the full affinity map in FigJam.
The Users
In synthesizing the research, I found there were three distinct approaches to planning a move. I created corresponding user personas to represent these approaches and moving goals. Kayla needs a product that will allow her to plan methodically, according to her own terms and timeline. Frank is naturally disorganized and needs guidance from the approach through the unpacking. And Eliza has a complicated move that requires collaboration with friends and family.
I returned to these personas throughout the design process to ensure the product reflected their needs.
POV Statements
At this point I knew there were a variety of unique obstacles that could arise during a move. I began to zero in on the problems to be solved. POV statements allowed me to contextualize these problems within the unique experiences and needs of the prospective users:
I’d like to collaborate with users to find ways to help disorganized people who are preparing for a move to remain in control of their moving process because they feel overwhelmed and veer off track as the moving day draws closer.
I’d like to find ways to help stressed people who are preparing for a move to connect and collaborate with friends/family because they find their support to be helpful and comforting during the move.
I’d like to continuously iterate on the design to help people who aspire to have an organized move to thoughtfully plan and set goals because without guidance, they are unsure where to begin.
“How Might We” Questions
I was inching closer to the Develop stage and needed a launchpad that would propel me into effective brainstorming. How Might We questions would prompt me to ideate and craft solutions to the problems:
How might we keep disorganized people who are in the process of planning a move from veering off track as they approach their moving day?
How might we encourage people to reflect on their growth and achievements as they pack up pictures and papers during a move
How might we guide people who want to be more organized during their move to plan thoughtfully and set goals?
Product Goals
Help the user approach their move with confidence
Empower them with customized timelines and tips
Keep them on track to their goals
Allow them to easily collaborate with friends and family
Develop
Brainstorming
I approached this stage with an open mind, dropping any preconceived notions of what the product should include so that the process was guided primarily by the research findings. Creative constraints to brainstorm produced some of the most innovative and fun ideas.
See more brainstorming exercises in FigJam.
Sketching + Storyboarding
It was time to put pen to paper. I was excited about the ideas the research had stirred up so far. It was time to visualize these concepts and assess what’s doable before committing any one feature. It was just as important to visualize how these features would fit into the lives of the users. These storyboards were handy reminders of the users’ feelings and experiences.
✨ Feature Spotlight ✨
One of the most impactful products of the brainstorm was the Packing Personality feature, an onboarding survey that draws out specific information to pair the user with custom timelines and templates. This was created primarily for users who are unsure where exactly to start their planning.
Information Architecture
At this point I was moving forward with a variety of features and needed help figuring out how to structure the site. I performed a hybrid card sort remotely using Optimal Sort. Six participants were tasked with grouping predetermined terms into categories. They were given two categories and were asked to create additional categories for the remaining terms.
The results were surprising! No two participants created the same categories, though there were similar ones (ex. To Do and To Do List). I had to laugh at categories like Horrible & Random Things You Have to Deal with OR Think About When Moving. While this wasn't the most fruitful exercise, it further cemented that even thinking about moving was troublesome for these participants.
Take a closer look at the results.
User Flows + Task Flows
For the user flows and task flows, I stepped back to consider both my card sorting results and user personas in order to identify the most pertinent flows. Once I had that information, I needed to be sure they were efficient, logical, and familiar to the user. I asked friends, and paid close attention to the flows I encountered regularly online.
Task Flow
User Flow
You can check out even more task flows and user flows in FigJam.
Wireframes
The flows were instrumental in creating the mid-fidelity wireframes. It helped to step back and confirm that what I had created so far could effectively support the user’s journey through the product. I knew I could move on to more a detailed mockup when I felt confident that the most important steps could be taken with ease. I could begin to “flesh it out” once the skeleton was in place.
See more of the mid-fidelity wireframes.
Design Patterns + Branding
I returned to the user personas as I began to develop the branding for Viva Sort. The colors, fonts, and patterns had to reflect the mission of the product and the values of the target audience. I drew my inspiration from key terms that described the product goals. It was important that the typography and colors meet WCAG standards, as well.
Ease
—
Organization
—
Simplicity
—
Empowerment
—
Motivation
—
Ease — Organization — Simplicity — Empowerment — Motivation —
Time for Mockups!
I thought I might just be using the personas to sort of “paint” the wireframes I’d created. In actuality, I had to do more work to expand on my personas and find examples of products that they might use. It pushed me to think beyond the work I’d done so far and find additional inspiration.
Take a closer look at the initial high-fidelity mockups.
Deliver
Prototyping + Usability Testing
Prototypes for two key user flows were created in Figma. I recruited five participants, between the ages of 29 and 36, to test them. I used Maze and Google Meet to facilitate the testing sessions. Participants were asked to verbally share their decision making process via video chat, while Maze measured things like duration and mis-clicks. Once complete, participants provided additional feedback.
Flow 1: Sign up and onboarding
Participants were tasked with signing up for the platform and completing an onboarding survey. The purpose of the test was to determine ease of use and assess participant satisfaction with the survey content.
Flow 2: Inviting a collaborator
Participants were asked to invite a collaborator to the project and adjust their permission levels. The purpose of this task was to determine ease of use and assess the desirability of the feature.
Overall, participants found the task flows to be intuitive and clear. Both the Style Profile survey and Collaborator features were deemed desirable by the participants. Long duration and mis-clicks were more prominent in the first task flow, which was due in part to the participants’ lack of familiarity with prototypes. They had attempted to populate form fields by typing, however, the prototype was set up to auto-populate on a click. I realized the importance of setting the correct expectations regarding the limitations of a prototype when running testing.
Here are a few key takeaways from testing:
To Keep
Participants felt the typography, colors, and simplicity were in line with the mission of the platform.
Described the design as fun and enticing, a great way to gamify the platform.
To Consider
Redesign certain survey prompts to improve clarity
Increase font size for easier readability
Help the user differentiate between the invite field and existing collaborators
Iterations
Changes were prioritized based on the impact on the user. I did a few iterations to address concerns regarding readability — increasing the font size from 16px to 18px and 20px. I also tried different weights. In the end I went with the slightly larger font size of 18px for certain information on the site’s homepage.
Two participants felt the response buttons for the first question in the onboarding quiz could be reformatted to reduce scrolling. I removed several response options and reduced the height of the buttons. The distance between buttons was increased to accommodate for user touch error. A border was added to each button in the quiz to differentiate options and also increase proximity between terms and icons within the button.
To help the user easily differentiate between sections in the collaborators screens, I added a dark background to one portion to create visual distinction between the two areas. One participant felt the purpose of the Permissions toggle was unclear so I added a descriptive header to both columns.
Conclusion
Viva Sort was my very first foray into a comprehensive UX design process. The experience cemented the importance of research and feedback for me. Being able to look to my user personas for context, my peers for feedback, and my mentor for guidance was essential. Going forward, I plan to be more intentional and thoughtful with my planning for user research and usability testing. I’d like to provide context and clarity for the participants to mitigate confusion, without evoking bias.
Thank you for taking a look!