My Role
Product Design — Data Synthetization, Design Solution Ideation, Visual Design, Prototyping
Team
Product Designer
Design Lead
Timeline
3 months
Overview
For many small business owners, managing an online store can be a challenging experience. Between high platform fees, tedious product listings, and confusing inventory management, sellers might struggle to keep up.
Our team set out to change that with a free, user-friendly e-commerce platform built to simplify product listings and inventory management—helping local sellers focus on growing their businesses.
Solution Preview
Context
Setting the stage
For small business owners, managing an online store can feel overwhelming. On top of that, the high platform fees of popular e-commerce platforms can make the process feel even more daunting and stressful.
As part of #include, a student-led tech club at UC Davis, our team set out to change that. The project goal was to create a free e-commerce platform to help small businesses sell online without worrying about extra fees. However, through research, we uncovered pain points that sellers experienced, which shaped the direction of the product.
The Research
Understanding the seller experience
Researching our users
To build a product that truly met user needs, I did research by conducting a user survey, two in-depth interviews with online sellers, and a literature review on e-commerce challenges.
Here are our key findings:
🏬 Tedious Product Listings — Sellers found that creating product listings was time-consuming due to the excessive information required.
📝 Poor Inventory Tracking — Many sellers overlooked tracking shipping materials, leading to last-minute shortages.
📦 Confusing Shipping Options — Sellers struggled with selecting the best shipping methods due to a lack of guidance.
📉 Unpredictable Demand — They found it difficult to anticipate seasonal product demand and adjust inventory accordingly.
🚩 What was the problem?
Design Process
Transforming ideas into reality
Structuring the experience
I started the design process by creating an information architecture tree to map out essential pages and add potential features based on our users' needs.
Refining our features
After creating the information architecture tree, we identified many great features that could be designed. We then checked with the Development Team to see which ideas were feasible.
Unfortunately, many of our initial ideas, such as an AI Trend Prediction, were scrapped. As a result, I had to go back to the drawing board a couple of times until we had substantial ideas to develop.
Here are some of the key features that we chose to implement:
💁♀️ Category Suggestions — Tags/categories that were used previously are suggested during the product listing creation.
🚀 Carrier Options — Showcases different shipping carriers and their shipping rates for sellers to choose.
😋 Product Recommendations — Similar product recommendations for materials that are out of stock.
Creating the designs
Final Product
Seeing it all come together
Design System
For our design system, I used #include's branding across the screens and components. The main purple color is used throughout buttons and as an accent, in order to create a clean, seamless feel.
Listing a product
💁♀️ Category/Tag Suggestions — Auto-suggested tags and categories based on past product listings.
🚀 Carrier Options — Displays real-time carrier rates for informed decision-making.
Tracking inventory
😋 Product Recommendations — Similar product recommendations for materials that are out of stock.
➕ Needed Materials Formula — Allows sellers to track materials used per product by creating formulas, preventing shortages.
Managing orders
⏩ Simplified Order Processing — An optimized, user-friendly order completion workflow designed to ensure sellers can efficiently process orders from start to finish.
🔍 Searchable Orders – Sellers can quickly find purchases using order numbers or customer names.
Conclusion
Key takeaways & next steps
Lessons learned
Working as the sole designer taught me the value of adaptability. When certain features became technically unfeasible, I had to adjust quickly and propose alternative solutions that still addressed core user pain points. This experience strengthened my problem-solving skills and reinforced the need for flexibility when balancing user needs with development constraints.
Now what?
Currently, the development team is working on launching the platform.
In the future, our plans include usability testing with sellers to refine the product based on feedback and explore adding shop performance analytics to help sellers make informed business decisions.