Giftology
Mobile Gift Shopping app which curates gifts based on interests, hobbies, and life events.
Overview
Details
Giftology, an iOS app, aims to improve gift shopping by offering a comprehensive solution using A.I,
Duration
Q1 2023
2 Months
Design System:
Atomic Design
iOS (Mobile)
Tools
Figma
ChatGPT
Otter.AI
Role
UX Research
UI Design
Prototyping
Revenue Strategy
Overview
PROBLEM SPACE
For thousands of years, gift-giving has been a practice across many cultures and species. In modern times, gift-giving has become one out of five established love language humans use to develop relationships.
However, with the rise of gifting options, the phenomenon of choice paralysis has become more prevalent, leading to a negative experience for individuals who struggle with the expectation of finding a meaningful gift.
Overview
The Challenges
Harness the power of advanced technology to create a robust and user-friendly gift shopping platform.
Utilize AI customization to swiftly curate personalized gifts for each giftee profile.
Implement machine learning algorithms to analyze user preferences and suggest highly relevant gift options.
Develop a strong tagging system to seamlessly connect gifts, profiles, and interests.
business
Integrate drop shipping to offer a diverse selection of curated gifts from a larger marketplace.
Showcase unique products without the burden of extensive inventory management.
Introduce a feature of recommended wrapping paper to add value for users and generate additional app revenue.
socio-cultural
Consider socio-cultural factors when vetting gift items to ensure appropriate choices.
Incorporate user feedback and reviews to align gift recommendations with cultural preferences.
Establish partnerships with local vendors or artisans for culturally significant and region-specific gift options.
Foster a diverse team to bring varied perspectives and insights for a wide array of culturally relevant gifts.
By considering the business challenges as opportunities, there exists a solution.
technology
Research
INTERVIEW FINDINGS
Affinity Map
Themes
After 2 rounds of decontextualized interviews, I summarized the key findings from the 3 interview participants to identify 3 core themes: Pricing, Specificity, and curation.
Motivation
Behaviour
Goal
Buying gifts within budget
Buying great gift within price range
Scanning various websites and stores for clearance items
Lack of filters leading to overwhelming amount of options
Discounts/Deals
Using filters to narrow down number of options
Finding relevant gifts quickly
Using websites that are familiar and have best filtering options
Pricing
specificity
Not finding unique Gifts
Feeling excited in shopping journey
Purchasing perfectly tailored gift
Starting shopping journey 3+ months in advance
curation
Thoughts
Pain Points
In this experience, natural conversations with gift buyers unveiled shared goals and pain points, enabling the determination of key themes.
Specificity emerged as the most crucial factor in the shopping journey. Moving forward, my focus is on crafting user stories and designing solutions that address the identified themes that will ensure an exceptional user experience.
Research
User Quotes
“I want to make people happy with luxurious items, without having to pay a luxurious price.”
“The most important thing is that the gift is tailored to the person. But when I’m shopping, the categories are suggested as “gifts for him” or “gifts for her” and the results are always generic.”
“Shopping online provides so many options but it’s frustrating when I see in my checkout that the item is out of stock or shipping will take over a two weeks.”
Research
Secondary Findings
60%
“of consumers will look for more deals this year than in previous years, and many will consider a wider assortment of retailers to ensure they find the best gifts at the best prices.”
“A person over 55 is more than twice as likely to consider themselves a terrible gift giver than anyone in their 20s and 30s.”
- nypost
58%
“Parents are also worried about their holiday spending, with 49 per cent of women and 58 per cent of parents reporting that they feel concerned.”
- slice
Thoughts
55+
With my goal was to make the app to be inclusive and focused on human interests, I needed to find common traits among demographics that most struggle with gift shopping to identify a key demographic.
Fortunately, with my research findings, I was ready to get started on my Persona.
Ideation
Persona
•
Selective Sam
•
Persona • Selective Sam •
Thoughts
-
Sam is a full time working professional and a parent of two grown children. With an expanding family, there are more people to buy gifts for and he wants to make everyone feel surprised and special. He spends a lot of time searching for a meaningful gift, but sometimes he can’t find anything in time and settles for generic gifts that are within his budget. Although he knows he’s tried, the experience of not finding a meaningful curated gift makes him feel defeated.
-
• Feeling excited in his gift shopping journey.
• Feeling confident in his curated gift purchases.
• Finding gifts efficiently and within his budget.
-
• Spending a lot of time scanning various websites.
• Using websites that have good filter options.
• Starting gift shopping journey 3+ months in advance.
-
• Feeling overwhelmed by too many products because of a lack in filters.
• Settling for generic gifts.
• Going to checkout to purchase items but learning they are out of stock.
“Shopping online provides so many options but it’s frustrating when I see in my checkout that the item is out of stock or shipping will take over a two weeks.”
Now that we know selective sam, let’s discuss:
I explored 4 different personas before creating my final design. I chose a name like Sam as it is a gender inclusive name and allows the opportunity to explore how Sam can evolve.
Later in my design phases, when I approached User Interface design I experienced a different set of challenges as I wanted to be conscientious of my target audience and what kind of UI they like.
How might we help parents over the age of 55 find affordable and meaningful presents that make them feel excited to give to their loved ones?
Ideation
Task Flow
Considering the top 10 user stories, I brainstormed 3 task flows in order to determine the key feature solutions users would want to see.
After participating in a peer critique session with three other UX designers, I finalized on a single task flow as a starting point for my app designs.
To identify key features, I analyzed user interviews and identified three core elements: a centralized platform for best-priced items, personalized gift shopping, and curated gift recommendations based on unique qualities.
Through competitive analysis, I crafted a unique value proposition for Giftology users. They can create "giftee" profiles, save interests, curate a gift shop, set birthday reminders, and receive guidance for perfect gifts. This ensures that users can enhance their relationships through well-guided gift selection.
Ideation
Task Flow x User Journey
Objective is to buy a curated gift for Neira. She’s 32 and new to your team. You know she likes baking, technology, and the outdoors.
Step 1
subtask 1
Create a Giftee Profile for Neira.
Step 2
subtask 2
Proceed with creating the giftee profile and saving the profile.
Step 3
main task
Navigate to Neira’s curated gift shop and add an item to your Gift List.
Step 4
main task
From the gift list screen, review and select and item you want to add to your cart.
Step 5
main task
Review your checkout, determine if your want gift wraps and proceed to payment.
Ideation
Sketches
With an established task flow in mind, I started my wireframes in a sequence of Crazy 8’s and decided to perform brief user testing with 5 individuals to determine how intuitive the initial sketches were. From my sketches, I moved forward into wireframes.
Once I approached developing a design system in my next step, I created my own interactive date picker component (so no more need to place holders!).
Design System
Ideation
Wireframes
Creating wireframes was exciting. I sourced inspiration from applications like Classpass, Uber, Reddit, WishUpon. While not all applications had the exact features I aspired to design, I was able to create the foundations of my application.
For this process, I performed a 14 hour sprint. I found that I wanted to get my ideas out into as many frames as possible to retain a consistent flow and train of thought. From there I performed 3 rounds of user testing to determine a version of the application that allowed users to perform the task flow with a 90% success rate measuring ease and intuitive design.
-
![]()
Typography
-
![]()
Brand Colours
-
![]()
Blur effect
-
![]()
atomic design
-
![]()
Redlining
To view more details, click the buttons below!
Design
prototype
I heard someone in my program say “I want to explore and go beyond my comfort zone.”
And that made me think… I want to do that too. In this moment I want to completely challenge myself and try out something new, so let’s do something crazy and design in dark mode with glass morphism. And voila! I cried and laughed and asked for a lot of feedback throughout the process.
Looking back, I’m grateful that I was brave to explore this direction. My UI inspiration board in this prototype consisted of Stripe, Spotify, and various Dribbble designs. Although I carefully curated and made my design decisions by always coming back to my my moodboard, and attending 5+ review sessions, I discovered that I thoroughly enjoy exploring in my design process before narrowing down my designs. Although it’s difficult to let go of certain designs, I found that it helped build my confidence and story as I became more acquainted with my idea and possibilites.
With that in mind, I would like to continue simplifying the application and design in the light mode while exploring organic textures like linen, paper, cotton to find a new way to convey the brand I’m creating of “home in a box”. Some of my new UI board for my rebrand consists of Oak + Fort, Aritzia, Cuyana, and Muji.
Anyhoo! Feel free to browse around the prototype. I created a design library, UI inspiration board, and Revenue Strategy. If you’re curious to view these items, click the buttons below!
Design
Impact
In a survey conducted with 25 individuals, 19 confirmed that they would download and use this app to help them organize and find greater success and ease in their gift shopping journey and showed excitement to learn of it’s development and growth.
The opportunity for local business to earn from partnerships on the application gives greater exposure and revenue as gift buyers gain awareness of their relevance and value.
Finally, alongside the great adoption of machine learning and A.I. there can be a great sweep of showing users the benefits and power of the advancing technology, providing solutions to daily events.