Barn

Find accommodations for your horse

Design Process

With a user-centered focus, steps covered through my design process included creating personas, user flow, sketches, wire-frames, and interactive prototypes.

Define

The first step in my process — defining and answering the 5 “W” questions:

Inspiration & Research

I began the research and inspiration phase of my process by conducting market research and competitor analysis to better understand who the competitors were and what they did well or poorly. Competitor analysis and user stories helped determine the essential features the app would need to make it successful and useful.

Competitive Analysis

Quick research facts

Problem Statement & Solution

My findings revealed that there are only two other companies that help users find accommodations for horses: HorseBnB, and Horse Motels International.

Both companies apps and website have strengths and weaknesses. After reviewing each in detail, I felt that there was a great opportunity to create new, higher quality product with a much better user experience.

My findings also helped me shape my problem statement and possible solutions.

User Interviews

I conducted remote user interviews to gain an understanding of their needs, goals, and points of friction. I asked questions focused on their experiences with renting accommodations for horses.

User research helped me confirm and revise possible solutions. Utilizing this information, I began to design the app with the following main functions:

Conceptualization

Using my findings from the inspiration phase, I created three user personas to represent user groups with different backgrounds and needs.

User Journey & Flow

In addition to the personas, I also created a user journey and user flow for the app’s main functions. I wanted to understand how users would complete a function and what they would need to accomplish it.

Ideate: Wireframes

I first sketched low-fidelity wireframe ideations with pencil and paper. After I decided on the general layouts of the screens, I turned to Figma to create the mid-fidelity wireframes. Before starting the wireframing process, I decided to apply a 8-column grid to create an organized and consistent look throughout our screens.

Prototype

As a last step in the ideation phase, I used Figma to create a clickable prototype.

Usability Testing

Needing to get early user feedback, I prepared a remote usability test by creating a plan that asked users to complete certain tasks:
 


1. Find and reserve short term accommodations for your horse.


2. Find and reserve long term accommodations for your horse.


3. Find and reserve a horse adventure/experience.
   

Peer Review

I asked peers from my professional network to conduct a peer review so that I could gain suggestions and comments for improvement of the Barn app. Asking other designers and UX-minded people for critique helped me confirm or revise elements of my app, making the next iteration even better…

Updates included:

1. Update the map area to be interactive for users to drag to see more areas in the vicinity.

2. Build out more sections of the app to get a better feel of the experience.

Final Designs

Style Guide

Next Steps

As for next steps, I plan to add more content, and conduct more usability tests to validate and solidify the concept. I will continue to test to see if and where there may be areas of improvement, as continuous iterations are an integral part of the design process.