SpeedShop App

SpeedShop is an app I created that streamlines the process of buying pre-1975 vintage car parts for classic car restoration and hot rod enthusiasts. The app prevents one of the main problems of shopping online for car parts, which is scamming. In turn, leaving customers satisfied and confident that they bought from a verified re-seller.

Design

UI/UX, Visual Design,
Brand Identity

Tools

Figma

Team

Personal Project

SpeedShop
Case Study

  • There is no convenient place on the internet or app store where you can seamlessly buy and sell pre-1975 car parts for restoration, hot rods, customs, and motorcycles without getting scammed. To buy and sell car parts today, one would need to scour lots of websites, post on social media, and risk getting scammed.

  • SpeedShop creates a space where buying and selling vintage car parts is easy. The ease is in part with making secure transactions on the app, messaging sellers and buyers, and enabling a sort and search function to find a car part quickly. The hope is to eliminate many hoops for buyers and sellers to get the right amount for their car. The app intends to have a simplistic design, so older and younger folks can use it quickly.

  • My role with SpeedShop is to visually create an application that solves the inability to buy and sell vintage car parts and conduct user research. Although the project was over several weeks, I was able to interview two car enthusiasts for user research. In my research, I learned that I must create an inclusive and straightforward design accessible to all generations and curate a hot spot for buying and selling vintage car parts.

  • I established the applications main goal as to buy and sell pre-1975 car parts on a secure platform. After conducting the research behind the app, I found that there is no other platform like it on the app store, and the only other websites that provide the service of buying and selling vintage car parts need to be updated, updated, and are difficult to find. Making an empathy map helped me realize how to solve common issues in buying vintage car apps. I used this information to create an impact effort matrix by laying out features that would make the app more helpful. The essential elements in the app came from creating the matrix and collecting user research, such as the filter and sort option in search, making user profiles, and having a seamless checkout. Each order will be from an approved reseller, which eliminates scammers from stealing money from innocent people. Overall, conducting research for SpeedShop made the design process smoother because I had a clear direction of what features I wanted to implement in the app.

  • My main takeaways from this project have been that it is beneficial to conduct user research before diving into a project. The research helped me form the application in a way that I would not have designed it if it wasn’t for the new information I learned. I think asking people in-depth questions allows for better user research results because I could tune the app to follow future users' desires. I thought the entrepreneurial aspect of developing an app that could help people was helpful because now I have the skills to invent an app confidently.

SpeedShop Contextual Inquiry

James Hummel
22 years old
Cal Poly Humboldt
Arcata, CA

Main Task: To pay for vintage Hot Rod parts through a secure network that prevents scammers.

Needs and Wants: To discover new parts for building a new hot rod on one platform.

Findings: Dylan loves hot rod and custom cars ranging from the 1930s to the 1950s, but he finds it difficult to buy and sell parts. The only places he can do this is on obscure car part websites and mostly on Instagram. He gets embarrassed posting car parts for sale on his personal Instagram, since it should only be for social networking.

Rod Smith
79 years old
Retired
Washoe Valley, NV

Main Task: To pay for vintage Hot Rod parts through a secure network that prevents scammers.

Needs and Wants: Selling and buying parts for classic cars ranging from the years 1918 to 1972.

Findings: Rod is part of several car clubs that involve classic restored vehicles from 1918 to 1972. He has collected cars over the last thirty years, but when he rebuilds them, he finds there are not many trust worthy websites where he can get the exact part he needs. There are also scammers that target older people, which makes him more high risk of falling for a fake car part transaction.

Empathy Map

An empathy map is a tool used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. It externalizes user knowledge in order to create a shared understanding of the user’s mindset, and aid in making design decisions. I started my design process by creating the map, from categorizing research notes from an interview and contextual inquiry.

Impact Effort Matrix

An impact effort matrix is a 2D-visual that shows the relative importance of a set of items based on two weighted criteria: values to your users and organizational (projected) efforts. I brainstormed all potential features based on my findings, then organized them into a matrix so I could choose the highest values for my users. I considered reach, value for users, user engagement, potential revenue, and implemented effort.

Sketches

I initially sketched out thumbnails to understand the visual hierarchy of the app design and receive feedback from my peers.

Final Screen Designs

Overall, I designed a modern application accessible to younger and older demographics searching for a solution to buying vintage car parts.

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