Client: eBay • Role: UX Designer • Duration: 7 months
Introduction
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For this project, I led the end-to-end UX design process in a global, multi-disciplinary team to deliver an internal creative tool for eBay. The main goal of this project was to develop a channel-agnostic creative tool that has the ability to generate creative assets at scale. This was a new creative direction for eBay, and one that was foreign to many others even within the company. While this creative tool sparked both excitement and curiosity, there was some fear of the unknown.
I am unable to share the full scope of this project due to confidentiality. However, I can share my design process and key takeaways.
Design Process
From our initial discovery phase of conducting 16+ focus groups and recording 280+ user stories, there was some feedback that focused on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automation. Some people feared that this tool would nullify the need for creative roles at eBay. After hearing our users' concerns, I was able to reflect on the moral dilemma of automating the creative process and the possible consequences it could have. From my perspective, having a tool that executes tasks with great efficiency gives people more time to focus on areas of their work that could use more attention. We wanted to make conscious design changes to emphasize the autonomy creative users had while assisting their creativity through automation. I learned quite a few things from our interviews and was able to gain a better understanding of our users' needs, frustrations, and more.
With our user interviews, I was able to create personas that defined our targeted users and user flows that mapped our users’ existing processes. The process of mapping these flows allowed me to visually identify the pain points and understand where this new tool can come into play.
Illustration from Storyset
Illustration from Storyset
One of the biggest takeaways from this project was learning to collaborate with a global team. How can I relay the things I’ve completed to my teammates and how can we share/do work efficiently in a collaborative manner? With a project at this scale, it was important for me to communicate well and provide solutions that enhance our teamwork.
Here were some of the tools I loved using for this project:
01 Lucidcharts & FlowMapp
02 InVision Whiteboard
03 Figma
Despite the different timezones my team and I were in, we were able to collaborate in real-time due to these tools. It was gratifying to draw and share our ideas as if we were in the same room.
As with many projects, there’s a moment in time where things head in a different direction and, well, you end up having to change the design completely. While this was stressful under our tight deadlines, it was important for us to discuss and understand the rationale behind these sudden changes. To move forward with these new ideas, we validated our concepts through user testings. The data and feedback we've collected were invaluable and ensured we were making well-informed design decisions.
After many design reviews with our stakeholders and users, I believe we built a solid foundation for our tool. The final deliverables for this project included high-fidelity mockups and prototypes that gave our development team a better understanding of how certain components should behave. The most rewarding part of this experience was learning so many new tools/skills along the way and building a strong relationship with my teammates.
Illustration from Storyset
Key Takeaways
Illustration from Storyset
01 Establish a method of communicating project updates and concerns.
02 Do not be afraid to ask questions! (Especially if you're a new member of the team, ask as many questions as you need so you have full clarity of your role and project expectations.)
03 Be open to learning new tools.
04 Embrace change and the uncertainty. (It's uncomfortable at first, but trust that this process will help you grow!)
Conclusion
Illustration from Storyset
Thank you to all my teammates for your support, perspective, and humor! It was a huge opportunity as a new grad to jump on this project and I’m happy I was able to impact the future tools of eBay.