Improvement of an inventory management app and development of a sharing feature
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Industrial design engineering (MPDES), MSc
Publicerad
2019
Författare
Chalandon, Olivia
Lidborg, Patricia
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Abstract
The thesis has been conducted in collaboration with the startup company Sortapp,
with support from FutureMemories AB, at the division Design & Human factors at
Chalmers University of Technology. Sortapp is an app in development and on its way
to be released, with a purpose to be used as a smart way to digitally organize one’s
home inventory. The ability to reuse stored items by sharing this information through
the app, leads to having a better overlook of one’s belongings. Sortapp aims to
reduce the overconsumption and support a new movement towards a circular
economy by encouraging people to reuse items stored away.
The initial aim of the project was to ensure that the main functions in the existing
application work fluently, generating a coherent and intuitive app. Secondly the aim
was to explore how the application, Sortapp, can be further improved by identifying
user needs and conducting various user tests and interviews to translate the needs
into new useful features to include. In addition to improving the foundation, exploring
ways of how to include and develop on added sharing feature has been completed
to support Sortapps aim of offering a sustainable option of obtaining products.
The results from the different studies on Sortapp v.1.0 lead to insights on what needed
to be changed for the app to be ready for a release. The gathered data about if and
how people share belongings, showed a demand in a communication tool, presenting
an accessibility of items to borrow, representing the first part of the sharing journey.
These insights and results were prioritized in a journey map and were further refined
to issues that were translated into features, to add to Sortapp. The first two features
were generated from Sortapp v.1.0 basic feature of adding an item to a storage, the
third to communicating the availability of sharing an item is an obstacle people
encounter today, the fourth feature is similar to the search for an item to see what the
contact has chosen to share with the user and lastly, the final feature is a solution
gathering information about various changes in the app:
• Adding an item and sharing
• Adding multiple items and sharing
• Search for an items/boxes/storage to borrow
• Search for a certain contacts items/boxes/storage
• A notification center gathers received information about items/boxes/storage
Ideas and concepts were designed based on the found issues to facilitate the
interaction with the app. An evaluation of the features was conducted by testing
prototypes on potential users. The final concept including all five features is presented
as a result of the evaluation and is a representation of the thesis outcome.