Alana
Team Members
4 Designers
Role
Designer
Project Lead
Timeline
Feb to May 2024
Project Type
Client Work
Skills
Prototyping
Visual Design
Interaction Design
OVERVIEW
Making Alana a more authentic experience
Alana is an app that aims to tackle the issue of bootleg products through a barcode scanning feature that displays the product’s true retailer
Within one semester, 4 designers and I worked together to redesign Alana’s mobile app to elevate their mission of authentic purchasing through implementing a personalized marketplace.
RESEARCH & FINDINGS
Alana didn’t feel trustworthy & lacked a purpose in the market
We conducted 10 user interviews primarily targeting female adults on product authenticity and conducted usability testing with the current Alana app. Key findings we highlighted were:
Interviewees saw no clear purpose as for why they should use Alana
The app would completely time out if it scanned an unknown product which was common
My team and I met up together to look through the app to evaluate the app experience. We immediately noticed that Alana’s UI was unintuitive and felt incredibly unsafe to use.
We realized that Alana needed a complete restructuring of its user experience to live up to its mission of product authenticity.
We created a ‘HMW’ statement that helped us ideate a new product that focuses on authenticity.
IDEATION
Creating an Alana that promotes authenticity for a user’s lifestyle
I initiated a team whiteboarding session to think of ways Alana can stand out in the retailer industry.
We settled on the idea of implementing a marketplace that recommends products where users can curate their own lifestyle. Alana was also now about truly fulfilling a user’s lifestyle.
To flesh out our mission, we thoroughly laid out our information architecture on Figjam in preparation for prototyping the new features and test cases.
BRANDING
Color rebranding to emphasize authenticity and trust
We also decided to rehaul Alana’s brand colors to better align with our goals. Majority of interviewees felt the colors of Alana were scam-like, so we settled on neutral greens which evoke personal growth, calmness, and truth to users.
Laying the app framework out & taking edge cases into consideration
SKETCHING
My team and I had a sketching session where we did our own sketches to converge our ideas together for the lo-fi iterations. We also tried to figure out edge cases like users scanning in a product not in the database or if a user would like to remove a scanned product from their history to curate their marketplace.
DESIGN ITERATIONS
Each designer was delegated a page flow to work on and would continue to for the rest of the redesign. We created diamond-shaped folders to cultivate brand identity for Alana. From here, we focused on wireframing and prototyping user flows.
Mid-Fidelity Prototypes
FINAL DESIGNS
A fully refreshed Alana experience
Shop through trusted products that embody you.
Contribute to a growing platform through scanning.
Curate recommendations through profile customization.
WEB DESIGN
After showcasing our final mobile iterations to the Alana team, we moved onto expanding the project scope to a web version of our features!
Expanding our Alana to Desktop
REFLECTION
Working on Alana gave me lots of creative freedom to transform the brand. Being able to constructively critique Alana’s pitfalls and pitch our ideas to the developers and CEO was exciting and have translated to good things for both my team and Alana!
Successfully rebranding Alana
With our rebranding, Alana has been able to successfully grow its team and business interest with the rebranding and new features
Market Growth for Alana
I would be hesitant to pitch less expected ideas but seeing it pay off here made me truly realize that’s how one hones a designer mindset.
Don’t be afraid to assert your ideas
Check out my other work!
Leading a product rehaul to create an accessible display of astronomy datasets and analytics.
PRODUCT DESIGN • DESKTOP • CLIENT WORK