USER RESEARCH
PROJECT DETAIL
Project Length: 10 Weeks
Project Advisor: Ryan Hanau
Team Members: Wasinee Winprawet (Myself), Nikita Akula
WHAT IS ON-DEMAND PRINT DELIVERY ?
A painless alternative to get printouts without dealing with a printer.
How it works?
- Upload
- Review
- Pay
- Print delivered
BACKGROUND
The copy and printing industry has yet to be digitized & democratized. This project is intended to discover alternatives to the traditional copy/printing business.
Our project proposes to enter the on demand printing market ecosystem (copy shops, libraries, schools), offering the same solution to consumers in various ways. For online uploading and printout delivery, there are very few existing competitors – FedEx and a few small print stores. However, their online-upload-and-delivery option is difficult to access, and the shipping is prohibitively expensive. In regards to price and stature, FedEx is our key competitor. They provide the same service at a 3x higher price, with several more touchpoints.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
SURVEY
We began our user research with a survey of users’ relationships with the elements of printing and owning printers.
Purpose
- To learn about the users’ printing habits
- To discover pain points around their current printing choice
- To discover their needs for printing service
- Proof-of-concept testing
This resulted in the development of pain point identification and “proof-of-concept” type testing.
The first survey yielded 31 responses and indicated that a market exists for our digital printing delivery service.
FINDINGS
PLANNERS VS LAST MINUTE(RS)
45.2% of the participants get their printouts ahead of time
The planners are the target audiences
TOP 3 PAIN POINTS
- Printer technical problems: no ink, paper jam, software update
- Time-consuming
- Costs too much
TOP 3 FACTORS CONSIDERED
- Time/Nearest Location
- Price
- Quality
USER INTERVIEW
INTENT AND SCOPE
The focus of this research is to refine potential target audiences and to gain an in-depth understanding of their pain points and needs around printing services.
We aim to gather qualitative data from semi-structured interviews. The research was conducted in Oakland and Santa Clara, CA for in-person and online interviews will be conducted via google hangout/ zoom.
KEY SUCCESS METRICS
- What are the demographic details of our target audience?
- What are the target audience’s pain points related to their current printing service of choice?
- Feelings or emotions related to the printing journey.
FINDINGS
Two main selling points for participant’s current option are
- Free
- Easily accessible
COMMON PATTERN AND PAIN POINTS
- Unreliability: no paper, shop closed, paper jam
- Time-consuming and commuting
- Inability to review work before printing: bad format
- Privacy: forgetting to log off your account, downloading important files and forgetting to delete them
- The amount of usage is not enough to own/deal with a printer
QUOTES FROM INTERVIEWS
“I would prefer printout delivery, but the only blocker for me is when it turns out expensive!”
“I was anxious! Because of pushing things last minute. I wish I could have planned things earlier for a smoother process.”
“I want them to print & send it to my destination for me.”
INTERESTING INSIGHTS
- Participants with no printer don’t feel excited to own a printer.
- Participants with printers are not happy.
- Participants may change their behavior if a new option is more convenient.
- Most Participants print last-minute, but they want to quit doing that to prevent errors.
- The most concerning part about print delivery is the user’s privacy. Especially for important documents like passports.
THE NEXT STEP
Stakeholders:
– More research about user privacy to build user’s trust
Marketing:
– Come up with the right price point
– How to market to the last-minute printer
UX/UI Designer & Developer:
– Develop a feature that allows users to edit/review with clear instruction of paper size & margin
– Providing a paper option