Locale
Locale
Bringing local business into the digital spotlight.
A conceptual service solution for small business owners looking to expand their digital presence and reach.
View more working details
Project Type
Mobile app
Duration
10 weeks, Winter 2018
Tools
Figma, Google Suite
Team
4 UX Designers
Design Digest
Design Digest
As part of a design studio course, my team was tasked with creating an application for a target audience of our choosing. We chose to focus on small businesses—especially those slower to adopt social media or struggling to keep up with the digital market.
Introducing Locale
Click to view the vision video
Discover
Discover
Our team began by identifying a gap in how small businesses market themselves online. Through primary research, interviews, and market analysis, we uncovered key pain points: inconsistent online presence, lack of digital confidence, and missed opportunities to build community engagement. These insights laid the foundation for our design direction.
Define
Define
We focused our efforts on small business owners who are passionate about what they offer but overwhelmed by digital marketing. Our challenge became clear: how might we empower these business owners to be seen and supported without adding complexity to their workflow? We translated our research into actionable goals, user personas, and feature requirements.
Research
We had the opportunity to do some primary and secondary research to understand the opportunity space around shopping local at small businesses.
Gen Z shoppers desire a social media presence
“Generation Z aren’t just looking to buy your products, they’re also looking to tell everyone else about it. If there is no way for them to do so, your business could still do well, but you’d be missing out on thousands of dollars in free publicity.”
Marketing to Generation Z During Small Business Week: https://medium.com/small-business-big-world/marketing-to-generation-z-during-small-business-week-86d4ad57c2b1
Shopping local is on the rise in popularity
“In 2018, U.S. consumers reported spending a record high of an estimated $17.8 billion at independent retailers and restaurants on Small Business Saturday. Over the years, Small Business Saturday spending has now reached a reported estimate of $103 billion since the day began in 2010 — that's $103 billion over 9 days alone.”s-over-large-companies-23667.html
American Express https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small/about?linknav=us-open-shopsmall-globalheader-about
Now that we have an in-depth understanding of the landscape, we picked the top three compeitors to be inspired by moving forward while taking the lessons we learned from each.
Shops were either completely empty or were overrun with customers.
Customers came in waves and passersby were influenced to enter the shop if they saw others stopped and interacting.
We were turned away by the busiest of stores.
Interactions between customer and employees were genuine and human centered; People to people - not just person to screen.
Of the people who actually bought things at the farmer’s market, they were there for the specific vendors; they came and went.
It seemed these people were dependent upon the market for their groceries.
A majority of people were just window shopping, having fun or were there anyway.
The age range at the farmer’s market was all over the place and it was a mixed bag of tourists and locals.
A majority of their customers are tourists or community and environmentally conscious locals or wealthy people with a second home in Savannah.
The age range for a store was either across the board or incredibly specific (ie. One Fish Two Fish said only 60+ people shopped there).
Shop owners who did not have a website almost appeared guilty about it and asked earnestly if we knew anyone who could help.
All six of them said that they would love to shop local more than they do, but parking and transportation is a major factor that prevents them from doing so.
One interviewee specifically said she shops local at home due to the convenience of being able to walk to stores from her house.
If an item is only a few dollars more expensive, they do not really notice.
Payment is difficult, there are many different laws.
Turning profit is hard.
Websites are important, but they are hard to make and maintain.
Social media is even harder. Stores have very specific markets.
Research Implementation
Want to learn more?
Full process details are included in the book.
Design
Design
With inclusivity and ease of use in mind, we explored flows, interactions, and visual design that would feel approachable and empowering. I contributed to early sketches, mid-fidelity prototypes, and interactive wireframes—centering usability and brand storytelling in every iteration. We prioritized features that would help businesses quickly post updates, highlight products, and engage with nearby customers.
DTC; Small business buys on behalf of customer directly from the vendor
Live updates on inventory + Expected inventory AR directions
Same (POS) platform
Analytics from live inventory
Rating feature and popularity alert (trending)
AI web professional Include many payment options
Business analytics
One profile, many stores and universal rewards card
Market outreach
Based on the labeled cards, we sat down with people to see how they would categorize and label our sites. Here are the cards we asked our users to sort:
Insights:
Products first, everything else second; 12 out of our 18 testers said that branding was important to maintaining the feel of a small businesses but that product exposure was key.
Time is off the essence; our testers agreed that time is of the essence. Either setting up a new site or shopping for a product, the less time it took to get something done, the better.
Based on the labeled cards, we sat down with people to see how they would categorize and label our sites. Here are the cards we asked our users to sort:
Insights:
Visual hierarchy and organization will be key; Users voiced that many of our cards could fit under one card such as “profile” and that other cards such as “rewards,” “discounts” and “today’s deals” might refer to the same thing. Their placement in the menu will define what the user thinks of them.
Menu needs the same level of granularity; Users voiced that our cards were not consistent in filtering down to their granularity such as “orders” filters down to “past” and “current” while other categories end with one card.
Not everything needs to be in the menu; It is possible to remove cards from the information architecture to only appear when the user is in direct need of them. For example, payment methods could be removed and only shown at “check out.”
Based on the labeled cards, we sat down with people to see how they would categorize and label our sites. Here are the cards we asked our users to sort:
Limitation
Many small business owners were intimidated by the physical cards and did not want to participate. When we made it conversational, however, many opened up. Instead of using physical cards, we verbally asked them to rank these three categories in the order that they would do them when setting up a new site. We then followed up asking “why” specifically.
We were able to get insights from 12 local businesses on what’s most important to them.
Insights:
There was a tie between Aesthetics and Products being the most important with 5 votes each. Aesthetics came in second place with 5 votes.
Business came in third place with 7 votes.
Insights:
Users do things in different orders of operation; Our users continue to show us that people have vastly different orders of operations and that we should enable and honor that behavior. None of our web survey users had the same order of operations.
Users have different values; Our users value different things and are often passionate about they value. For users passionate about aesthetics, they were very passionate about aesthetics.
Insights:
Personal order of operations; our users want to do tasks in different orders so we should allow them to jump around the checklist. Ex. wanting to figure out the domain before setting up aesthetics.
Clarify product delivery; our users wanted to know the exact metrics for how products at small businesses would end up in their hands; do they have to pick it up or will it be delivered?
Simplify; there’s a lot our service could do. We need to further narrow down what we aim to include in the final.
We started with a rough information architecture:
Then we storyboarded:
UI Development
Finally, we explored low-fi UI on paper first.
Low-fi:
Mid-fi:
We started with a rough information architecture:
Then we storyboarded:
UI Development
Finally, we explored low-fi UI on paper first.
Low-fi:
We started with a rough information architecture:
Then we storyboarded:
UI Development
Finally, we explored low-fi UI on paper first.
Low-fi:
Mid-fi:
Small Business View
We explored low-fi UI on paper first.
Low-fi:
Mid-fi:
Shopper View
We explored low-fi UI on paper first.
Mid-fi:
Methodology
1. Pre-evaluation training Pre-Test Questionnaire
Give evaluators needed domain knowledge and information on the scenario
2. Evaluation
Individuals evaluate the app and then aggregate results
Asked to think aloud
Given as little interruption as possible
Given specific tasks to complete
Took notes on their speed and understanding
3. Severity rating
Determine how severe each problem is (priority)
4. Debriefing
Review with design team
Heuristic evaluation
Closing statements
Insights
We discovered:
The processes we are showing can be condensed into fewer screens and fewer steps. User testing will be needed to explore how far down we can narrow.
Clarity continues to be an issue that will resolve with higher fidelity wireframes and more user testing.
Clarify the process and the interfaces; Our users understand our concept and the need for our product. What they seek now is cleaner, more understandable interfaces that take their to the end result quicker.
Insights
Aggregated from the participant data to highlight the biggest areas of need.
Consistency and Standards:
Observation: “I think the profile icon needs some labeling to differentiate when I’m logged in and when I’m not.”
Problem: Labeling is going to be super important to add clarity to the interface.
Solution: Adding clear, concise and consistent labeling
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design:
Observation: The front end and back end products have the potential to be vastly different from each other.
Problem: Front end / Back end aesthetics need to match. People need to know that it’s from the same site.
Solution: Defining a design language and sticking to it.
Visibility of System Status:
Observation: “So I was checking out and now I’m creating an account… do I get to back to checking out?”
Problem: Creating an account and linking accounts during the checkout process should be more clear.
Solution: Reorder, shorten and simplify the checkout process and add some clarifying indicators.
Recognition rather than Recall:
Observation: “Is that a lock? What’s the key?” “It’s a shopping bag.” “Oh.”
Problem: Iconography development will be key, it is currently unclear.
Solution: Developing easily recognizable icons which will be double checked with user testing.
As a result, we determined:
There is a need for more clarity that will come with higher fidelity wireframes and more user testing.
Labeling will become more and more important.
Setting Up A New Website
Buying Products Online
Deliver
Deliver
Our final concept brought together a simplified posting system, real-time discovery map, and community-building tools. We built a high-fidelity prototype that reflects both the personality of local businesses and the needs of today’s digitally native customers. The concept was delivered with a full UX case study and presentation deck.
Brand & Identity
Debrief
Debrief
Locale challenged us to think beyond product features and focus on empowerment. It reminded us that good design doesn’t just solve problems—it uplifts people. This project reinforced the importance of thoughtful tech that supports local economies and human connection, and strengthened my skills in collaborative problem-solving, storytelling, and inclusive design thinking.
