Hifur-Second hand furniture System
It aims to help the moveable young people chasing fashion and affordable furniture. The system will provide the online system, including the website and app to select the furniture and related workshop.
User research, UX Design, Service Design,
Period
April .2020 – August.2020 (Master thesis-Individual)
Contribution
Project management, User research, Concept development, Prototyping, Service design
Background
Furniture as an object exists in people's daily lives, and it occurs as a kind of waste after it is used. The government and the organization are all starting to take action to recycle it. In the meantime, some users realize recycling is a current and future trend. Some of the users want to recycle the furniture. Furthermore, the data shows that in 2020 users in the UK, From the action perspective, 50% of Londoners have thrown away furniture, electrical items, and homewares in good condition. Only 19% of 16-24-year-old people don’t know how to recycle or donate.
Research
The research aims to find specific problems and narrow down the design goal. I two round interview with user and expert to define the design direction.
User interviews
Key Quote
“All the furniture in my room has to have a holistic style. It needs me to spend a long time choosing and I am depressed always need to deal with the furniture when I move to a new place. “
“I’m the kind of person who uses a product for a long time, I can feel the connection with them. And normally I don’t consider about the sustainability. The quality and function are important to me.”
“I chose the charity shop to buy furniture because I want to help the people who need help and I can also buy the product I need”
“My community has an online group and people are willing to sell their unused furniture there. And I enjoy fixing the table, while it needs to be easy to fix previously.”
Insights
The user has an Aesthetic demand for the furniture.
Don't have a long term plan before buying the furniture
Uses care about the emotional connection with the product
Users don't consider sustainable of the furniture
Users prefer to buy furniture from a second-hand
Users don't consider the sustainability of the furniture.
Users tend to exchange or sell second-hand furniture.
Prefer to buy the easy fix- up furniture
Expert interviews
Overview of insights
If second-hand furniture has the same value as new furniture it will encourage users to buy it.
Increasing the emotional connection between the user and the furniture will make them treasure it more.
Users lack the connection between the sustainability and furniture
From the user insights, I narrow down the reserach direction with HMW questions which is
How might we encourage consumers in sustainability in the future?
Key Quote
“Trust is quite important for the organization. It takes a long time to build trust with the local people. Once people trust the organization, they are willing to cooper- ate with you and find you for help. Without fast furniture, we cannot afford to have a home”
Insights
Building trust is essential for the user to give the furniture to the organization.
Fast furniture makes people alive and also breaks the environment.
Key Quote
“people do not throw away the furniture. One of the most important reasons: People have the emotional connection with furniture. During the coivd-19, I sell the recycling kits to people and put the painting tips on the website”
Insights
User care about the emotional connection with the product
People willing to rebuild the furniture by themselves
Stakeholders map
I synthesized the interview and find the main