Gamer Station is a local e-commerce platform designed to serve the gaming community, with a primary focus on Twitch streamers and desktop gamers between the ages of 22 and 45. The website aims to be a dedicated marketplace for buying, selling, and trading gaming equipment.
The project:
Solo UX Designer
I led the entire UX process, from initial research to final design. I conducted unmoderated user studies and synthesized the data into empathy maps to deeply understand user needs. A key finding was the user's need for clear navigation, which directly guided my design decisions to create a straightforward, intuitive user experience.
My role/responsibilities:
May 2025 to July 2025
Project duration:
Challenges:
Small-town residents often face long shipping times when ordering gaming equipment online. This creates a significant pain point for local gamers who want a faster, more convenient way to find and acquire gear.
The goal:
The primary goal was to design and build a streamlined local e-commerce platform that directly addresses the challenge of long shipping times. This platform needed to allow users to easily buy, sell, and trade new and used gaming equipment within their community.
To kick off the project, I conducted unmoderated user studies and synthesized the findings into empathy maps. This research provided critical insights into the habits of local gamers, particularly their frustration with long shipping times and their need for a trustworthy local marketplace. The research identified key pain points related to navigation, discoverability, and social proof, which became the core focus of the design.
Research Summary
Lack of Discoverability: The "Add to Cart" button was not prominently displayed on product pages, making it difficult for users to locate and initiate a purchase.
User pain point 1
Poor Navigation: The user flow lacked a clear way to return to a previous page, leading to confusion and forcing users to restart their Browse.
User pain point 2
Limited Social Proof: Users expressed a desire for more robust product reviews and seller ratings to build trust and inform their purchasing decisions.
User pain point 3
Background: Naomi is an online graphic design student and a passionate online gamer. She spends a lot of her time streaming on Twitch, where she connects with other gamers and builds a community around her passion.
Goals:
To easily and efficiently sell her old, unused gaming equipment.
To get a fair value for her items without dealing with the hassle of traditional online marketplaces or shipping.
To find a simple, trustworthy platform that connects her with other local gamers.
Pain Points:
She currently has no simple way to sell her old equipment, leading to clutter and lost value.
Traditional online marketplaces are often slow and require dealing with the complexities of shipping.
User Persona: Naomi, The Creative Streamer
I created a user journey map to visualize Naomi's end-to-end experience, focusing on her emotional state and key moments of friction. The journey begins with feelings of excitement as she explores the platform. However, her enthusiasm turns to overwhelm during the search process, as she navigates through pages to find a specific product.
This is where I identified key opportunities for improvement, such as creating a better filtering system and a more prominent "Add to Cart" option. The journey concludes with feelings of excitement and anxiety during checkout, which led to a key design opportunity to simplify the process and allow for saving user information for future purchases.
User journey map
My process for creating paper wireframes began with a challenge: to push beyond my initial ideas and avoid a repetitive design. I used the Crazy 8s rapid ideation technique to generate a variety of unique concepts. To validate my ideas, I then shared the most promising sketches with a small group of trusted peers, using their feedback to inform the final design direction.
Paper wireframes
The low-fidelity digital wireframes were the direct result of the insights gathered during the Crazy 8s session. This stage allowed me to consolidate the best ideas and apply them to the final structure of the website.
The new layout was specifically designed to address the user pain points around navigation and discoverability, ensuring the user flow was intuitive and straightforward from the very beginning.
Digital wireframes
For the user profile page, my goal was to create a layout that was both clear and trustworthy. I designed a low-fidelity wireframe with a prominent user image and key profile information organized in a logical, top-down hierarchy.
This design choice ensures that users can quickly scan and update their information, while also helping to build a sense of legitimacy and trust for buyers.
Digital wireframes
My low-fidelity prototype was created to test whether the new design could solve key navigation pain points. I ran usability tests focused on two primary user flows: the path from the homepage to checkout and the process for managing a user's profile.
The goal was to confirm that the design provided a clear and intuitive experience, ensuring users could effortlessly accomplish their goals on the site.
Lo-fi prototype
The "Add to Cart" button was not prominently displayed on product pages, making it difficult for users to locate and initiate a purchase.
Lack of Discoverability:
A usability study was conducted and these are what I uncovered:
The user flow lacked a clear way to return to a previous page, leading to confusion and forcing users to restart their Browse.
Poor Navigation:
Limited Social Proof: Users expressed a desire for more robust product reviews and seller ratings to build trust and inform their purchasing decisions.
Limited Social Proof:
The usability study provided crucial validation for the new design. By testing the prototype, I was able to confirm that the changes made directly addressed the initial pain points. Users were no longer struggling to find the "Add to Cart" button, the new navigation solved the confusion of returning to a previous page, and the overall design felt trustworthy and easy to use. These results proved that the design was effective and ready to move forward.
Mockups
Before usability study
After usability study
Before usability study
After usability study
Building on the success of the low-fidelity prototype, the high-fidelity version was the final step in refining the user flow and design. I made strategic changes based on my usability testing, including adding a clickable company logo in the header for easy navigation and moving the "Add to Cart" button to the top of the page to ensure it was always in sight. These intentional changes addressed the core pain points and created a more intuitive and seamless experience for the user.
High-Fidelity Prototype
Accessibility was a core focus of the design to ensure an inclusive experience for every user. I established a clear and consistent typographic hierarchy using distinct heading sizes to improve readability and help users quickly scan the content. To simplify navigation and content separation, I used divider lines and strategic spacing to create clear breaking points. For users with assistive technology, I also implemented ARIA landmarks and descriptive labels to provide a seamless and understandable experience for screen readers.
Accessibility considerations:
The redesigned high-fidelity mockups successfully built user confidence and trust. Target users felt more secure using the site knowing there were clearer product descriptions and a system for reviews. This confirmed that creating a sense of reliability and social proof was a critical design priority.
Impact:
Project takeaways
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Validation: Conduct a final round of usability testing to ensure the end-to-end user flow for buying, selling, and trading is intuitive and error-free on the live website.
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Content & Trust: Expand the platform's functionality to include a more robust photo-upload feature for sellers. This would directly address the need for more authentic product images, which is crucial for building trust in an e-commerce marketplace.
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Community Engagement: Ideate and explore new features that foster a stronger community, such as a real-time chat between buyers and sellers, or a dedicated system for users to arrange trades.
Next steps:
This project was a powerful reminder that simplicity is key. The valuable feedback from users reinforced that a clean, straightforward design leads to a better user flow and a more intuitive experience. I learned that a design doesn't need to be flashy to be effective; clarity and usability are far more important.
What I learned: