Notes from heuristic analysis of Convene Marketplace (11/24/2023)

[anaulin]

Notes from a heuristic analysis session conducted by Edu and Elio of https://sutty.nl/ for the Convene Marketplace.

Notes from session

• Landing page (https://marketplace.piikup.com/)
  • there isn't much context here -- what is this Marketplace?
  • "Home" button is mixed in with the list of vendors which is confusing -- is it a vendor that is named "Home"?
    • ✨ Gizmo: SectionNavigation #1964
    • 🧹 Section: Remove Navigation in favor of SectionNavigation Gizmo #1989
  • looks for a search functionality, but it doesn't exist
  • too much reliance on text in buttons -- humans are better as scanning for visuals
• Vendor page (https://marketplace.piikup.com/rooms/cafe-gabriela)
  • there is no context for the vendor
    • ✨ Section#description #2228
    • ✨ Section#hero_image #1961
  • "what does GF, NF mean???"
    • 🥡 Marketplace: Product#tags #2189
  • "where are you ordering from?" section
    • small gray text is not accessible -- too small, too low-contrast
    • it could try using the IP location for the user
  • product amounts aren't clear "feeds... how many?"
    • 🥡 Marketplace: Product#servings #2170
  • delivery area "change" link is too far from what it is changing, relationship isn't clear
  • i want to make the product images bigger, and i want more images
    • 🌸 Marketplace: Shopper adds Product to Cart through Menu #2072
  • when navigating to another vendor, thought that the cart would be shared across vendors, but it wasn't
  • bug: somehow Cafe Gabriela cart wasn't saved and got cleared out
    • (🐞 Marketplace: Buying Products: Switching Marketplaces should not destroy your Cart #1962)
  • going to checkout: was expecting that it would show me my cart again, before asking me to enter payment details, so that i can review and confirm
    • 🌸✨ Marketplace: Checkout includes Products, Taxes, and DeliveryFee #1997
  • bug: checkout details form is broken
    • 🐞🔨 Marketplace: Buying Products Fix Delivery Form #1979
    • 🐞 Marketplace: Buying Products: Saving Delivery Details on Checkout when no Cart Delivery Area is set #1983
  • could offer to save checkout information after checkout
• As the marketplace operator
  • there should be a clear indication that you are "in marketplace management mode"
  • options under marketplace management should be grouped into "configuration" and "operations"
  • missing title/header when editing Delivery Areas, and some other marketplace management sections
  • there is no way to delete a Tax Rate
  • Order History doesn't look like a list; it should show a "total of orders" and generally look more like a list
  • it would be nice to export order history as a CSV
  • order history does not have the marketplace management UI
  • order notifications section is missing context, what are these options for?
  • product editing UI won't scale beyond a handful of products per marketplace
  • there seems to be no way to delete/hide/archive a product if there is already an order attached to it
  • will you want/need inventory tracking?
• General thoughts
  • for an app that is "core" for the business of the user, we want a UI that is very efficient, compact, and powerful; if it is "not core", simplicity and good defaults are fundamental
  • one way to get user prioritization input is to ask them to dot-vote on a set of options (giving them dots equal to ~50% of the options presented), and then asking them why they chose that way
  • Bonfire (https://bonfirenetworks.org/) has a "module" system, could consider integrating with or moving to there
  • when designing something, think about success criteria before starting

Potential tasks, as distilled from notes (rough, unordered)

• add context to Piikup Marketplace landing, e.g. "Buy local! ..."; could be done simply editing content of markdown block
• improve the "section navigation", which is doubling as "vendor list"
  • don't show current section when you're on that section (e.g. don't show "Home" when you're on page "Home")
  • allow images / icons on buttons
  • consider turning this into a standalone "list of links" (or "list of buttons") gizmo, and allow users to configure which links to display, with which URLs, titles, images
• add product search across all of a space's marketplaces (so e.g. I can go to Piikup marketplace and search for "cheesecake" and see all the vendors that will sell me a cheesecake)
• replace small gray text with larger text with a darker gray
• add a free-text area to a marketplace that can be edited by the user; this could be used to:
  • add some context about the vendor
  • include a legend ("GF = Gluten Free"), delivery hours or anything else that's relevant
  • this could be solved by adding a "markdown block" gizmo, but this whole "gizmo" thing seems too complicated and folks don't know how to use it
• make product images clickable-to-expand
• allow multiple product images
• for Space operators, separate marketplace into two modes -- "shopping" and "managing as an operator", and make the mode clear
  • maybe this should be a pattern for all gizmos -- have a "management" and a "using" mode
• group manage marketplace options into "configuration" and "operations" sections; users are going to use "operations" more frequently
• make sure that all marketplace management sections have a clear heading that gives context as to where are we at
• make it possible to delete a Tax Rate
• make order history look like an actual list
• add help text to order notifications section to clarify what are these for
• make it possible to archive or "hide" a product, so that it doesn't show up as an option to buy