A reliable checklist that makes dorm shopping easy and memorable for freshmen
Role
UX & Visual Designer
Timeline
8 weeks, 2021
Stakeholder
Bed Bath & Beyond UX Team

Overview

In 2021 fall, Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) UX teams came to our school looking for projects to improve the college shopping experience and drive sales.
By working with my professor and their senior designer, I designed a checklist with registry feature that provides freshmen with reliable recommendations tailored to their individual dorms.
My project was awarded top 3 out of 90 projects and I was invited to do a public presentation.
Challenge
Freshmen have limited experience with independent living, so they need parents to help prepare to bring or buy dorm essentials.
How might we help students and parents with the planning process for dorm?
Jump to the solution!

Research

Field Research: to discover freshmen pain points
To understand freshmen experiences of planning for dorm rooms, I observed and interviewed 13 students (field research) on move-in-date. Then I conclude with those insights:
😄 # Happy moment
Freshmen share good news for the memorable moment.
Freshmen are so proud and excited to share the good news with their family and friends who send congrats and gifts to them.
😫 # Frustrations
Parents buy or pack things that freshmen don't want.
Parents might buy or pack something freshmen don’t want. They have to negotiate a lot.
Unreliable checklist
Even freshmen made checklists, they all missed some essentials to bring or they bought unnecessary items. So they had to go to crowded stores back and forth for more items, which is low efficient shopping experience.
Interview: why is the checklist not reliable?
To increase shopping efficiency with parents, a reliable checklist is key, but why freshmen failed in making a reliable checklist? I did 9 in-depth interviews and used affinity analysis to find out the main reason:
Freshmen have difficulty obtaining personalized and reliable advice that is customized to their dorm features to make checklists.
# Quotations
“The school checklist said bring hygiene necessity, but it didn’t tell me what exactly are those .”
“I got 3 different answers on bed size from school staff so I just brought the king-size bed sheet cuz it fit anyway.”
“We do not have winter clothes in India but senior students in online orientation told us to buy some because it is cold here. It is useful.”
Competitive analysis: why do checklists from online products not help?
Based on user needs and business goals, I want to know how current store/website checklist functions meet user need, so I did a competitive analysis of checklist functions on market commerce products and found the reason:
Checklists in online stores require users to fill out the list by online purchase but freshmen bring some items from home or offline purchases.

Empathize with freshmen

Michael and his journey
Michael Davis‍
17 y/o
Domestic Student
Freshmen at RIT
Live in school dorm
From Long Island
  • I make vlog for memorable moments.
  • My grandma asked me what gift I want and I feel so grateful.
  • I like to collect more information about my dorm to make a checklist.
  • My friend went to RIT too, so he gave me authentic advice.
  • I shop with my parents because they will pay for me.
  • My mom packed some items I don’t need like a steam iron.
  • Would shop online when I found he needed something.
Design Goals
As a young generation, Michael like recording memorable moments. And it is his first time living without his parents so he needs more support. So I decided:
Bring more memorable moments for freshmen, their family, and friends.
According to Michael’s familiarity with online platforms, and services that stakeholders provide, I decided:
Help freshmen shop online efficiently with more authentic advice and more flexibility.

Ideation

HWM and Brainstorm
With the direction and 3 HMW, I explored solutions and analyzed their Pros and Cons based on user needs and technology feasibility.
Proposed solutions
Key flow
Bed Bath & Beyond client feedback
“I could probably not remember how much money my grandma gave to me but will definitely remember the pillow she gave to me as a college gift because it is memorable!”

Concepts & Critiques

Because stakeholders want to see more creative projects, I design 3 versions with different emphases. Then I have them have several group critique sessions with students, professors, and stakeholders.
Concept 1 – shopping efficiency
# Pros
Improve shopping efficiency by laying all items upfront at once
# ❌ Cons (reasons of denial)
  • Checklist function is not highlighted.
  • Generic and impersonal shopping experience
Concept 2 – visual creativity
# Pros
Visually appealing elements to stand for an unknown but expecting life for freshmen.
# ❌ Cons (reasons of denial)
  • lack brand identity
  • “It's like a scam website.” (from my professor)
Concept 3 – balance brand identity
# ✅ Pros (Reasons of approval)
  • Intuitive checklist which fits user mental model
  • More brand identity

Tests & Iterations

To check if the project really helped freshmen, I conducted unmoderated testing with 5 users and found 2 main feedback which helped me with iterations.
1. Reduce overwhelming information density
# ❌ Before
Too many items and rich information at one page overwhelm freshmen.
# ✅ After
Progressive disclosure by accordions‍
Use accordions to allow freshmen to decide what to read or ignore, so they can focus on the most important items they want to buy with prioritized information.
2. Build trust
# ❌ Before
Freshmen worry about entering personal information because they do not know what Ready to Live list is at the beginning.
# ✅ After
I designed illustrations on homepage to welcome freshmen.
User quotations to build trust
I also leveraged real user quotations during sign-up process to help freshmen understand the product and to build trust between freshmen and the platform.
How does final design solve problems?
A good first impressions with illustrations I designed and user quotations
With a few illustrations and real user quotations, freshmen could trust the product will enhance their life in some way so after they tried the product they feel rewarded for their faith in the product right away.
Engage users on one page for shopping efficiency
Freshmen can share the list, add items to the registry or cart, check item details on one page without opening new tabs. This helps them shop efficiently without opening too many new tabs.
Shop with personalized recommendations
The list and recommendations are tailored to your dorm features. The advice is from senior students who used to live there.
This leverages the advice to influence freshmen to make right purchase decision.
Flexibly fill out the checklist
Freshmen can also click ‘bring my own’ to fill the list. This tracks offline purchases or their own items and it also fits their real behavior instead of requiring online purchases to fill out the list.
Memorable moments with registry
After sharing the good news with the registry, freshmen can also add items they want to the registry so their parents or friends will buy them as memorable gifts.
Check image
Customize your checklist with clear goals
Clear goals make freshmen feel a sense of accomplishment when filling out the list. They can customize the checklist if they are not satisfied our checklist .
Freshmen can switch different sections by tabs. They can complete the whole check-out process right on this page too.
Back to design process

Results

Top 3
My project was selected as top 3 out of 60 projects and I was also invited to do a public presentation.
Impact
My project influenced client to update their registry checklist on BuyBuyBaby (a BedBath&Beyond’s subsidiary company), which allows users to fill the checklist without being required to purchase online.
What I learned
Get closer to users
In the beginning, I was not familiar with freshmen college culture but field research led me to discover an opportunity to create memorable moments for freshmen. Additionally, I found that they are more open to sharing their emotions in familiar contexts. Therefore, in future work, I'll prioritize engaging with users through observation and conversations to empathize with them for insights!
Balance user needs and business needs with stakeholders
With input from stakeholders regarding business goals, current services, and technical feasibility, the critique and iteration process involved more negotiation. I've learned that as designers, we often balance user needs with business goals and occasionally take technical feasibility and budget into consideration. This experience help me fosters a big-picture thinking.
Further thoughts

I have a big picture view to eventually build a community with trust where students, family, and friends could have more interactions and networks to attract more new users join it. To do this, challenges will be on:

1.  Referring system, how can we make users share the good news by different contacts, how can we make users buy things and send gifts easily.

2. Privacy system, how do we balance users on what they want to share and what they don't want to share with the public.

3. Game/promo system: creating more promos that stimulate users to interact more with their family or friends.

Back to top
Check out other interesting projects: