
Case Study: Price Patrol

In 2017, Google's Play Store contained an approximate 2.8 million apps. With so much choice and so little curation, selling (or even finding) the best app proved itself to be a challenge of Amazonian proportions.
Today's consumer is often overwhelmed by a similar burden of possibility. Whether it's choosing the most efficient savings app or the highest quality peanut butter, comparing dozens of options proves an arduous process.
Leading a team of three designers, I was tasked with a concept redesign of Price Patrol's Android app.
This meant working to polish the app's branding and user experience while enhancing its value proposition through the fulfillment of unmet user needs.
By tracking product prices with a 'radar' feature, and integrating with Google Maps and GPS locations services, the service is able to keep tabs on nearby deals—and notify customers when their saved items fall below MSRP.
While Price Patrol had the right idea, its app wasn't sufficiently equipped to compete in the crowded mobile ecosystem.
Visibility issues and an oversaturation of similar price comparison tools had created a Red Ocean market.
Surveyed users expressed a strong desire to access in-app resources, but were often deterred by frustrating search functionalities, missing and/or illegible store details, and an ill-fitting brand identity often perceived as childish and unprofessional. With similar feature sets common in rival apps, the startup was coming across like a knockoff brand.

CHALLENGES
Price Patrol needed to stand out in a crowd, but with limited time and manpower, attempting feature parity would've required an incommessurate effort. Worse, there would be no guarantee of equitable results.
-
Identifying a niche market strategy.
Initial research made it clear that Price Patrol was an underdog in the price comparison space. It would take a unique and highly specific value proposition to pull this brand out of the shadows.
-
Promoting team transparency and individual accountability.
I began the project by leading all contributors in the creation of a shared team agreement.
Everyone advocated for transparency in communications, but this was easier said than done.
-
Working end-to-end processes in less than two weeks.
With Lean startup methodology under my belt, two weeks felt breezy with a team of four. Then it was a team of three. Unforeseen setbacks and changing circumstances kept us on our toes 24/7.

THE DOUBLE DIAMOND APPROACH
Agile processes are core to my workflow, and you'll notice my case studies are split into four sections—each focused on different perspectives, processes, and deliverables. From here, jump directly into any particular section, or keep scrolling for a quick summary.

01 DISCOVER
After leading the team in the creation of a shared working agreement, I contributed to research efforts through comprehensive competitive analysis, in addition to heuristic evaluation and usability testing of the app's existing design.
I then assisted our lead researcher in the analysis of user data, organizing a series of affinity maps, crafting use case scenarios, and collaboratively developing primary and secondary personas.

02 ENVISION
In collaboration with our research lead, I internalized secondary findings describing prevalent mental models for decision-making. This helped bring our primary persona to life, fostering knowledge of her personal needs.
With the team ready to discuss their proposed solutions, I led collaborative whiteboarding exercises with the intention of defining experiential goals, prioritizing features, and developing a shared vision.

03 DEVELOP
As our team was impeded by unforeseen challenges, I took the lead in concept development, spearheading an extensive, last-minute design studio process to develop testable wireframes and stay on schedule.
Then, concerned with the app's appearance, I facilitated a casual focus group, proceeding to leverage garnered insights as I assisted our visual lead in defining brand aesthetics such as color palette & visual metaphor.

04 DELIVER
Taking on the common pain points of time-intensive research, content overload, and expensive first-party booking, our team delivered solutions custom-built for a dependable, productive, and stress-free user experience.
In addressing Maggie’s needs, our team made design decisions centered on her personal goals and preferences. Click the button below for a high-level view of our solutions, as well as notes on project reception, and a short postmortem.