T2T
#Turn trash to treasure
Hackathon Group ProjectSummary
T2T is a furniture app that aims to foster a unique nyc community culture called stooping. We wanted to streamline the process of and help those looking for furniture, arts, and plants effectively search for pieces to add to their home.
So…What is stooping?
The idea of stooping is when someone casts away their no longer needed furniture on the sidewalk and anyone who needs it can pick up and bring it home. With the absence of stooping apps on the market, users interested in hunting furniture on the sideway have to rely on platforms like Instagram to gain information and connect with the community.
Problem🔎
Users lack a professional platform where they can easily find suitable furniture on the street and communicate with people like-minded.
Goal📍
Allow users to keep track of the latest furniture hunting posts and filter through information easily.
Encourage users to give and gain through gamified features so that community culture can be fostered.
Research
Competitive analysis—
The majority of stooping actions happen on Instagram. There are quite a few accounts that focus on publishing new furniture and reposting successful furniture hunts on a daily bases. However, since Instagram is not built for stooping, the functions couldn’t serve the needs of “treasure hunters”.
Information overload
Unclear distinction between posts of new furniture and successful furniture hunt
Stooping accounts use ins story as the primary tool to publish stooping information. However, users couldn’t distinguish between new furniture posts and successful stooping posts easily as the information is all squeezed in one place.
Lack of accessibility to important address information
Stooping accounts always welcome followers to send them curbside finds to keep the account active and up-to-date. However, reposted stories on Instagram do not include hyperlinks to address, this would require users to take a further step and manually type the information themselves.
Missing links to address
Unable to filter information
Filter information is time-consuming
Stooping lovers have to follow several Instagram accounts in order to keep track of the market. Since ins story doesn’t provide a skip option, one must click through all the posts to find what they want, which is time-consuming. Detailed information like furniture size is usually not provided as all the information is posted voluntarily by people in the community, and it would be difficult for them to provide extra details.
With all the key insights, we began to think…
💡How might we design a stooping app to help users save time in hunting their ideal furniture and access key information easily?
💡How might we encourage users to be actively involved in posting new findings on street?
Brainstorm
Other than displaying the new furniture posts on the main page, we wish to include features that help to encourage participation and communication in the community.
We broke down the main functions into 3 parts:
Home page => Where you can swipe through all the furniture posts and upload your findings
Community Page => Where you can find inspiration from others’ successful hunts and recreations. You can also upload your own!
My page => Where you can access your saved furniture and posts. And most importantly, your badges are here!
User flow
Mid-fi prototype
Feature #1
AR scanning camera
The AR measure function saves users time and helps them to provide detailed data when uploading photos. This data could also help treasure hunters to decide whether the furniture fits their apartment or not.
Feature #2
Category-specific Filter
A category-specific filter is provided to help users narrow down their search list and avoid feeling overwhelmed by the number of items to consider.
Feature #3
Gamified experience
Stooping culture relies greatly on community efforts, how might we encourage users to actively post new furniture? To answer the question, we decided to gamify the app through badge collecting! For example, users can collect borough badges by posting or collecting furniture in a specific area. We hope to encourage users to give and gain in the community.
Feature #4
Availability check
One of the biggest pain points with stooping is that the availability of the furniture always remains unknown—has anyone picked it up yet? Did garbage trunk come? To alleviate this problem, we designed an availability button to keep users up to date. Not only the person stooped successfully can click it, but also active users around the area can help to update the availability. The badge mechanism would be helpful in this case as it encourages users to contribute useful information to the community.
Final Design Glimpse
You can find the full prototype here
Reflection & Future iteration
This is a design sprint finished in just 3 days. From brainstorming to wire-framing then to prototyping, we tried to consider different aspects and maintain the essence of this unique culture that belongs to NYC. Due to time constraints, we weren’t able to present the business aspect of this project, but we hope that in our next iteration, we can have new features that connect app users to designers/studios to refurbish furniture.
Sustainability still has a long way to go, but there are many ways that we can turn trash into treasure :) Hope that we can all become treasure hunters one day 🎁
