Pigeon Man

Simul Sarker

Project Overview
The Product
Pigeon man is an online marketplace based on Europe where the user will be able to buy easily racing pigeons. Racing pigeons will be a billion dollar industry within 5 years, so it has huge opportunities to grow. Although there are already some established competitors, they lack many features the user needs, here we will work on them.
Project duration
June 2021 - August 2021
Problem
  • It’s hard and confusing for the user to buy racing pigeons.
  • Lack of buying opportunities - low availability of sellers/pigeons.
  • It confusing to buy from existent platforms for the new user
The Goal
Design an app for Pigeon Man that allows users to buy easily and have a great experience having racing pigeons.
My Role
UX designer designing an app for Pigeon Man from scratch to prototype.
Responsibility
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs.

Process
I follow a design thinking approach to structure the process. Design thinking is a creative process to understand the users, challenge assumptions, redefine the problems and create innovative solutions by prototype development and tests that involve 5 phases.

User Research

During the empathise phase the main goal is answer these 3 core questions
Who?
Who is the racing pigeon buyer?
What age group of people will use the product?
  • Buyers are mainly 20-35 years of age.
  • Buying pigeons is mainly a hobby activity - users are in different professions, such as students, business man, job holders.
Where?
Where the service will be provided?
Mobile, tablet or desktop?
  • Europe.
  • Users will mainly use mobile and tablet.
What?
What are the main problems you are facing?
  • It's a bit confusing the auction option present at the top auction site; they could do it better.

Competitive Analysis

Based on my competitive research, I found most of the similar platforms are not user friendly and don't address the user's pain points. They focus only the bidding option.

Persona

Empathy Map

I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users and I’m designing for their needs. A primary user group identified through research was working adults who want to buy racing pigeon and join racing pigeon competitions as their main purpose.

Pain Points

1
Platform
There is no good platform to buy racing pigeons.
2
Pigeon Seller
It’s hard to find a solid racing pigeon seller.
3
Web UI
All current platforms are very messy, new users get confused on where to start.

Storyboard

User Flow

What user should be able to do?
  • Finding the Racing Pigeons.
  • Easily participate bidding and nice experience if win.
  • Know about fanciers.

Paper wireframe

Before jumping to the low fidelity wireframe design, I did the main brainstorming on paper sketch to help me visuallize the wireframes.

Digital wireframes

Low-fidelity prototype

I created a low-fidelity prototype to illustrate the primary user flow. This is a basic guide for users to buy racing pigeons, so this prototype can be used for the usability study.
View LF Prototype

Usability study: findings

I conducted two rounds of usability studies. Findings from the first study helped guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining.
Round 1 findings
  • User wants to know fanciers’ ( racing pigeon seller)  details.
  • User wants see videos about the pigeons.
Round 2 findings
  • User wants write note about while pigeon shipping.

Refining The Design

Early designs allowed for some customization, but after the usability studies, I added additional details on the sellers: a new page with only the seller’s details. I also revised the design so users see bidding options are highlighted, videos and added seller summary.

The second usability study revealed the user wants to add notes while they order their racing pigeons. Specifically, how live pigeons need to be shipped   based on the user’s location.

Mockups

High-fidelity Prototype

Using the completed set of digital wireframes, I created this High-fidelity prototype. This prototype can be used for the second round of usability study.
View HF Prototype

Accessibility considerations

1
Make easy the bidding page with sellers’ details information and highlight the bidding button.
2
Using icons that make easily understandable.
3
Adding fixed bottom nav. so user can easily navigate among screens.

Going Forward

Impact
This app makes it easy to bid on racing pigeon for new users. Before, when anyone new try to buy racing pigeon and facing auction, they got confused on where to start.
What I learned
It was great experience to work with this unique niche, from research to app design. Especially the auction section is very important.

Next steps

1
I have a plan to take it to the next level by bringing more community features. Where interested people can get connected with each other.
2
Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need.
Thank you for your time reviewing my the Pigeon Man app!

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