Prestcam Introduction of a new multi-product reservation system[Case Study]
Prestacam the audiovisual Air-bnb
Prestacam is a collaborative platform that allows the rental of equipment and the contracting of audiovisual services among professionals. Its mission is to democratize audiovisual production and energize the creative community. It is a platform that works under per-to-per dynamics, that is, it promotes the exchange of goods or services from a focus of solidarity, mutual benefit, and savings.
Objective of the project
Investigate and redesign the reservation system to make it a shopping cart type.
Requirements of the client
- Execute and manage orders for various products.
- Be able to add more products from the same user.
- Optimization for desktop and mobile.
User Persona
We developed two user profiles, the one who rents the product (The Renter) and the one who rents their audiovisual equipment (The Prester).
The Renter
Silvia
Silvia at 32 years old has set up a small production company that is just starting in Barcelona. She usually rent several of the equipment they use because that way they adapt to the needs of production.
The Prester
Pau
Pau is 39 years old, he is the head of a family business of audiovisual production, he lives in Barcelona.
Scenario of problems: Silvia
Silvia’s production company has received a new project to produce urgently: the client wants to make a video clip with a guest artist who will only be in town for one day. She will need to rent the equipment fast, you have very little time to organize the collection of these and everything else that goes into production. The first thing Silvia, together with her workgroup, makes a list of the elements that will be used in the recording.
You contact your trusted provider. You would also like to discuss your project with her since she is a person with years of experience in the field. This way you can be sure that the equipment you rent is the right one.
“I hope we find everything here”, she prefers to rent with a single provider so as not to have to travel around the city collecting equipment, since it would imply creating a route and doing a “tetris” with the times.
Production begins at 5 a.m. She haves to pick up the equipment very early in the morning, because if you take it earlier you must pay one more days rent. Travel to the store to pick it up, check the equipment, it is very important that everything is well to avoid unforeseen events and that they collect the deposit.
Scenario of problems: Pau
Pau started this family audiovisual production company several years ago, he has much equipment that he no longer uses, because they are older, and he uses the latest generation for his work.
Although they are in perfect condition and you have them without being able to get profitability. As this equipment is very expensive if you do not use them you will not recover the investment, and after time they begin to devalue so selling them is not an option either. He also cares for each one of them, they signify the effort of years, they are his treasures.
So he haves decided to rent them to other professionals, but he knows that he can find beginners who do not appreciate the real value of this equipment and do not give it the care it needs.
He needs a backup that gives him greater confidence that it may happen if the material is damaged, since it means to Pau not to have them if he needs them and that he has to rent it from someone else, generating inconvenience and loss.
Roles and responsibilities
- For this project, we work as a team together with Justyna Z.and Beatrice Nuti. 100% remote due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. A project for Ironhack with a real client. The stakeholders involved were the platform owner and the web developer.
- The project lasted two weeks.
- My role during the development of the application was as a UX&UI designer, more focused on: secondary and competition research, conducting interviews, and remote usability testing.
- We use Sketch for the design. Marvel for the prototypes used in the usability tests. For the animation of the final prototype, we used InVision. For the affinity diagram and the search insights, we work with Miro. The tests are carried out through video calls in Zoom or Google Meet and the entire organization is carried out through the Google suite.
Process and what we did
Research, Competition analysis
Goals
1-Benchmarking to know the competition of the audiovisual material rental market and P2P loan market to have a reference, find best practices.
2-Know how the inspirational pages of the business model of our client currently leads the multi-listing purchase process
- Multi-cart
- Icon and Menu on the right
- See other vendor items
- Option to buy
Competition
Alquiler audiovisual: A Visual Pro, Aclam, Casanovafoto
P2P: KitSplit, ShareGrid, AirBNB, Fat Llama.
Research with users
Goals
Discover the needs and motivations of users when renting different pieces of material from one or more suppliers.
Sources
- Interviews with 7 specialists from the audiovisual world
- Task analysis of the web page with 5 people
- Card sorting with 10 people
- 10 prototype tests
- Desirability test with 49 people
Secondary sources
Prestacam survey with 52 users of the website.
Research result
User type
- 12/17 (71%) have rented equipment at least once.
- 4/10 at least once a month.
- Only 3/17 (18%) are landlords.
Context
- 3/7 rents equipment at the last minute is stressful.
- 55% of Prestacam traffic comes from mobile.
Result of Task analysis of the current web.
We observed 5 people carrying out the rental process on the Prestacam website, obtaining the following conclusions:
- 3/5 seeks to read the opinions of other users about what the Prester is like.
- 4/5 Read the product description.
- 3/5 performs a simultaneous search and examines more than one product at the same time.
- 4/5 I looked at the place where the product was to coordinate the collection.
- 5/5 The supplier is contacted with the supplier before or during the reservation process.
The contact with the supplier is a vital step in the process, that this communication is carried out more easily is important to generate trust and fluency in the process.
The opinions that tenants make about the Prester is even as important as that of the product itself since what users want to know is who are the people in whom they place that trust.
Card sorting
We present a list of 10 characteristics of the product that they are going to rent to 10 professionals in the audiovisual world and ask them to rate it from the most important (10 points) to the least important (1 point).
Results
When searching, they think in category, (8.5/10 points). It is interesting that some users think about the type of project (interview, wedding photos, etc.) and would like to see products from different “traditional categories” (cameras, lighting, etc.) grouped according to their function.
Choosing between products they want to know the price (8.3/10 points) and name (6.6/10 points) since they are directed by brand and mention that it is better to pay more to have a trustworthy product.
In the next step, look for the address, description, photo, and ratings (5.7–5.1/10 points). — based on these data they choose the product to rent.
Problem statement
Problem Statement
Entrepreneurs in the audiovisual sector need a way to effortlessly rent, with a single trusted provider, all the material they need to avoid setbacks between pick-ups and deliveries in different places and to be sure that the material is in good condition to minimize stress and overwhelm and improve your job performance.
Value proposal
Have a single process where you can rent all the equipment you need, create a community with other professionals in the audiovisual world, and manage relationships creating trust.
- To fulfill the value proposition we focus on the following functionalities
- Rental of all necessary products at the same time
- Have lists of Presters and favorite products easily accessible
- Agile management of reservations and messages.
Jobs to be done, Moscow & Backlog
In the ideation process, we were able to find 26 possible new functionalities for the platform, thanks to the Jobs to be done and MOSCOW exercises, we were able to classify those that would help us fulfill the value proposition in the group “Must-Have”
User flow
Silvia enters the Prestacam platform to rent her products. As you will see now, not only can she add items to the shopping cart and continue browsing, but she also has access to the reviews of Presters profiles, which we hope will generate greater confidence in her.
In the Prester area, we focus on instant communication, reducing the acceptance times of a rental, having less possibility of losing a “client” and reducing anxiety to the Renter.
Ideation, prototyping, and testing.
The Design
Prestacam as a brand wants to convey simplicity and its visual objective is to keep the design clean since it is a canvas where users create their space for dialogue and representation of their services and products that they want to rent.
Creative concept center
Based on the research findings, we recommend emphasizing building trust. Our proposal tries to achieve this with visibility of the ratings and functionality to add products and Presters to favorites, to easily return to people and products that have generated good experiences.
In the future, we recommend working to convey confidence with detailed product descriptions and real photos, which were important to 6 out of 7 people interviewed.
Mood board & Style tile
To convey simplicity and clean design we have kept several elements already present in Prestacam:
- Simple icons and in small quantity
- A main color coming from the brand and a secondary color
- Simple lines, lots of white space.
We have changed the tone of the secondary color as the previous color did not meet the accessibility and contrast requirements. In the future, we recommend evaluating the possibility of adjusting the colors or changing the text on buttons from white to black to meet the contrast recommendation.
Testing
We did 10 tests on 2 prototype levels
Not only in the new design, but we also made our proposal of what already existed based on what we discovered in the tests
Prototype
We are working on a mobile version for Iphone and its corresponding responsive version because the platform is currently a web app, but our proposal is that it should become a responsive application because in this way features such as instant messaging can be implemented and according to research 55% of Prestacam traffic comes from mobile.
Desirability Test
Test: 49 people.
Method: simplified version of Microsoft Reaction Card submitted online in the form of a survey.
User opinions about the final version of the prototype, confirm that the design conveys the assumed values:
- Ease of use (59%)
- Design cleanliness (32%)
- Confidence (30%)
Lesson
- In P2P platforms, trust is what prevails in each transaction.
- Manage owner expectations, sometimes we forget that they don’t understand how the process is going and that based on research and analysis, the design does not always result in what is desired by the client but in usability for the user.
- Having a clear and measurable objective for each step would not have helped to not lose focus.
- Avoid owner FFFs for interviews, as they are not objective in showing pain points.
Thanks for reading me!
