Barter App
Brief
The situation, which turned out to be a collapse of the bureaucratic regime and a fall of the world economy below the level of the Great Depression, is forcing people to look for alternative ways to manage their well-being. During this difficult time, the value of money becomes depreciated and people start to use an old archaic trading model – Barter.
Despite its’ naturality, this model has some disadvantages, such as:
- It requires Double Coincidence of wants
- There is lack of divisibility
- Determining how trustworthy the person you are trading with is
- Services and goods you are exchanging may be exchanged for poor or defective items.
Goal
To build an App to help people execute barter operations. This app should partially solve aforementioned disadvantages of barter system. Providing such solution in simplistic way through mobile app will be considered as a value proposition.
Understand
User Persona
To understand the motives and patterns of people to use this application, personas were developed as close to reality as possible. As it can be see, even Facebook posts were taken to understand them closely from a psychological and demographic perspective.
User Journey
User Flow
Research
To find the most appropriate form of interaction, the following rules were selected for the application.
- Context of using. The search for items for barter can take place in a relaxed atmosphere. However, at the last stage of the barter process (exchange) a more stressful situation is possible. As a result, it is necessary to create tools to facilitate the process, rather than creating a cognitive load.
- Simplify. Research has shown that the three-click rule is incorrect. The number of clicks does not matter. The so-called “Cost per click” matters. If this creates an entertaining atmosphere of interaction then number of screens does not matter
Thus, there must be implied a rule: each screen- one primary action). Number of screens doesn not matter - Design for thumbs. All important navigation and interaction tools should be located at the bottom of the screen and easily accessible for the thumb
- Design for fat fingers (Min 48px)
- Minimise the need to type (type on phone is pain)
- One of the elements should be a Fly-Out button with adaptive functions for the requirements of each screen.
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Sketch
Wireframes
At the stage of wireframing, was developed a type of home screen – Dashboard, which is designed to provide the most important information. The second aspect was a way of users’ interaction with the app while searching for a suitable barter – scrolling a stack of cards. The third was the three-stage barter process – Offer, Negotiation and Exchange.
Design
High Fidelity Mockups
Since one of the drawbacks of the barter system is a lack of trust, the UI design should provide assistance in solving this problem. By means of UI elements, it was necessary to help users establish trust to the application and each other. Therefore, close to pastel green and yellow colors were used. The accent color is red. Soft shadows help reduce stress.
Navigation and Instruments
The bottom navigation bar gives access to home screen (dashboard), mailbox, barter platform and account settings. The fly-out button designed in order to provide flexibility of instruments depending on requirements of each screen.
Searching for Items
The search for items or services to trade takes place in a form of scrolling a stack of cards. Thus, the focus of eyes remains in one place (center of screen), which provides a smooth and enjoyable experience.
Barter Process
Barter process consists of 3 steps: Offer, Negotiation and Exchange
Fly-out Button
Font
Poppins
Colors
