Exploring Opportunities for Posman Books
Posman Books
Open since: 1982
Target Audience:
Book enthusiast and writers.
Hours of Operation:
Sundays - 11am-7pm
Monday-Saturday - 10am-9pm
Posman Books is a local book stores that sells books, puzzles, writing tools, as well as other expressive memorabilia (stickers, keychains buttons and more). They have something for everyone of all ages. Their mission statement is:
“We’re a bookstore generated to fascinate and fuel your self-expression; a haven for happenstance and a wellspring of surprises.”
When I visited their location in Atlanta I found myself in a book store with a unique personality to it. Although their main items are books I couldn’t help but find there were a lot of things my artist friends would enjoy.
I cam across a pack of pencils for writing which lead me to the question 'where are the art pencils?’ This was how the concept of Posman Arts began.
I wanted to propose this idea to Posman Books to explore it and see if this may be an area to expand their demographic.
They presented me with a persona based on their research.
Meet Jared
Jared is a frequent customer of Posman Books. His daughter Vivian loves art, drawing mostly. Jared is excited about Posman Arts this may be the perfect opportunity to share his favorite place to go along with encouraging his daughter with her art. He hopes not to run into the trouble of finding the perfect gift for his daughter with the new micro site.
Needs
Jared needs quick access to a vast selection of options.
He needs a better sense of the brands and what are ones most people trust
Pain Points
Some of the troubles Jared runs into in other art sites are difficult navigation,
The charges are unclear
There’s a complex returns process
Not enough product information
With the persona in mind I proceeded upon a user-centered design process.
Research
I had compiled a list of 50 art supplies that could be sold on the microsite and set up a spreadsheet as I went. Considering that the persona wants to use this opportunity to encourage his daughter’s artistic habits I thought it best to look at activities or projects that he and his daughter could do together. Even entertained the idea of including events as part of the microsite but that was beginning to get out of scope.
Open Card Sort - 4 rounds
After the list was compiled the question arose, how are people going to find things? That’s where open card sorting comes in. With open card sorting people sort items into groups however it make sense to them.
Find the Pattern
When we see a pattern we stop and take a closer look. Observe what threads of common elements get revealed. Once you’ve solidified the common thread put that to the test.
Closed Card Sort - 5 rounds
In this stage people already have the labels of the categories and you would observe how they are sorting items under the existing category. I discovered in my case I not only had to do a close card sorting but I also have to do an open card sort under craft.
Procedure
I would have the sorter start off with the primary category sorts, which are now Art, Craft and Tools.
Display the subcategories for Art and have them continue their sorting
Then I would ask them to Open Sort Crafts to see what categories surfaced.
Tracking the results of the
Close Card Sort
Analyze
Site Map
The Site Map is based on the research we’ve gathered. This helps drive the user flow.
User Flow
The highlighted path is called the happy path, the most efficient way for the user to get to their objective.
Design
Wireframes on how the user would navigate to find the item they’re looking for.
Wireframes on the payment process.
Finalized Prototype
User Testing
The Task -
Users were asked to find pencils, scissors and pom poms (one at a time they did not know what the items were until the previous item was added to the cart) and add it to the cart and then proceed to check out.
Each of these items are located in different categories. My goal was to observe how they navigate the site. I have them speak their thoughts as they went and questioned them afterward if there was confusion as they went
Over all, there was a lot of good reviews regarding navigating the microsite.
Despite that there seemed to be some confusion regarding the pom poms since they were located under “Crafts” under “Basic Craft”. When asked it looked like they could be under all 3 Categories. This told me more user testing regarding the Craft Sub Categories would need to be done.
The users did point out a few tweaks that needed to be made.
Iterations
Next Steps
Repeat. Research, Synthesize, Design
Based on testing we found we may need to do more Sorting for Crafts. There were items that could fit more than one category. We will conduct this research and have results in two weeks.
Provide a chat feature so that Jarred can reach out to us.