Pass it Forward

The Problem

Our team enjoys exchanging secondhand items with others within our communities. However, most online apps for giving away free items tend to be situated within larger social media experiences, and tend to be rather informal and unstructured as a result.

Our Solution

We created Pass it Forward: a structured, community based platform for users to exchange secondhand items with their real-life neighbors, fostering positive in-person interactions by promoting both fun and safety.

Identity Verification

Users are prompted to verify their identity and home address upon signup, ensuring that any in-person interactions will remain safe, secure, and between neighbors.

Requesting Items

Users browse free item listings from their neighbors and then easily view item details and send requests for items that they are interested in.

Arranging Pickup

Users have the option to arrange item pickup through a step-by-step process to minimize the hassle of going back and forth.

User Profiles

Users can view other users' credentials and reviews so that they feel safe and comfortable completing exchanges with them.

Design Process

We conducted preliminary user interviews and a competitive analysis to determine areas to focus on for our app.

What we discovered in our research:

There is a space in the market for a structured, community-based app for giving away free items.

The two primary concerns of our potential userbase are safety and reliability, both of which could be addressed through the creation of an app that fills the market niche that we discovered.

Here are screens from the chat flow that I created as they progressed through the iterative design process.

Our app has several measures for ensuring safety and reliability, in place throughout all steps of the verification and exchange process. I focused on designing the app's chat feature, which includes a scheduling system that makes it easy for users to meet up for item exchange.

The item exchange process:

The donator accepts an item request from the receiver
The app provides a list of convenient public locations for meetup
The app provides a list of time blocks within the next week
Once the users have both selected locations and times that work for them, the app decides on a location and time that works for both users
The users meet up at the designated time and place and complete the exchange
Afterwards, both the donator and receiver are prompted to leave a review for the exchange

Design System

I worked with a partner to create the design system for our app.

Through our visual design choices, we hoped to convey a sense of fun and freshness while maintaining accessibility and ease of use. The colors and font weights we selected meet WCAG AA accessibility standards.

User Testing

We conducted three rounds of unmoderated user testing through UserTesting.com. After each round, we evaluated our findings and made changes, mainly in the areas of clarity and ease of use.

Here are some of the changes that I ended up making to the chat flow.

Some users found it unclear whether location items were selectable, so I added outlines in order to make this more obvious.

Users thought that scheduled pickup times were not displayed prominently enough, so I added a clear label for this on the pickup confirmation screen.

Users were confused by the fact that they were prompted to leave a review before they were sure that the exchange was completed, so I added an “Exchange complete” announcement to the review page.

Final Design

Ultimately, this was an incredibly rewarding process of designing a wholly original app from start to finish! I learned a lot from my teammates, the users who tested our prototype, and the existing products that we took inspiration from.

If we were to take this project even further in the future, our hope is to expand the features that we offer, adding things like the ability to post requests for items that you are searching for.

A community-based, safety-forward “buy nothing” app

Timeline

People

Role

Outcomes