context

In Spring of 2019, I was assigned a project in which my team and I were required to design a solution around the rise of the “gig” economy. The company that was assigned to us was Etsy, the leading marketplace for independent creatives and small businesses to sell their handicrafts.

This project was completed within a timeframe of 8 weeks and involved interviews, ideation, prototyping, and usability testing.

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

While Etsy supports independent craftsmen and small businesses, there’s a detrimental side effect to shipping out thousands of packages daily; both inexpensive and commonly used, bubble wrap and styrofoam have a steadfast hold on the shipping materials industry.

Our solution? We developed EtsyGreen, a feature that showcased and highlighted sellers who switched over to sustainable packaging, allowing them to both gain visibility to make up for their profit cut and have a positive impact on the environment while doing so.

Etsy allows me to sell my products across the country but it’s such a big platform that it’s hard to get noticed.

Through outside research and multiple interviews, we gathered the following common painpoints:

• Because Etsy is such a huge platform, it’s hard for small sellers/starters to stand out.

• A lot of shops that mass-produce their products sell them at a lower price, taking sales away from actual small businesses who hand make all their handicrafts.

• Sellers are conscious of the environmental impact from their plastic packaging.

insight

While Etsy sellers cared about their environmental footprint, they were ultimately concerned with gaining visibility and profit.

ideation

From this research, we created user personas and began our ideation phase. Our wireframe, final persona, user flow, and storyboard are shown below.

usability testing

We conducted several usability tests with our first prototype. Through this process, we were able to pinpoint several weaknesses. Some of the feedback we received was:

• Not enough interactivity

• Confusion on what exactly constituted sustainable packaging

• Buttons were confusing or didn’t go where the user thought they would

Based on our feedback, we revamped our prototype by making it more interactive to prevent disruptions to the user flow.

Now using EtsyGreen, sellers can browse through the sustainable packaging offerings that Etsy sells in-site.

To sign up for EtsyGreen, sellers must upload a picture of their sustainable packaging and receive verification. Once verified, their customers will receive the option to “flag” the seller if they notice that the packaging they’re using isn’t sustainable.

As a EtsyGreen-certified seller, they’ll receive higher priority in search and be featured in lists.

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Reflection + Thoughts

As this was my first time asking interviewees to do a usability test using our prototype created in Figma, this project allowed me to gain a deeper familiarity with Figma and how useful it can be for prototyping. Moreover, I’ve learned that usability tests - while useful - can also be affected by factors outside of the product itself, such as buttons not working or limited interactivity that can disrupt the user flow.

Finding actual Etsy sellers to interview in person was a bit of a struggle, as only a few of our interviewees were sellers that were profitable during their time at Etsy. If I had more time, I would have liked to interview more users, as well as explore the product from the perspective of an Etsy buyer.