Frefurnish
Reducing furniture waste by connecting social homes with free, used furniture.
Timeline
September - December 2021
Roles
Designer - Developer - Project Manager
The Challenge
Social homes are scarcely furnished and often the existing furniture has to be replaced.
After speaking to a few social workers we realized just how poor the quality of living was for the people at these homes due to the lack of furniture and other household supplies. They expressed the challenges that came with finding and purchasing furniture for the home online. We made it our goal to simplify this process.
The Solution
Connect workers with donors
Create a space exclusive to social workers and people wanting to donate furniture
Allow workers to view available furniture near them
Allow donors to list furniture for pick-up/drop-off
Find free furniture
Browse furniture listings nearby
Filter search options for desired items
Request desired items
Research
During my research, I realized the range of homes that this problem was affecting. Youth homes and social homes were lacking essential furniture such as beds, couches, and tables. An article from Big Issue states that
“The vast majority of social housing DON’T have essential items such as beds, cookers, or a table and chairs”
After educating myself on the situation I spoke shortly to a few social workers who confirmed that this was the experience in most homes they tend to.
Competitive Analysis
Competition is costly and sometimes misleading.
Online marketplaces such as Craigslist and Facebook marketplace mostly host items that are for sale. Even items that are listed as free are sometimes falsely labeled to garner offers on an item. This complicates the search for free furniture making it difficult for users to sift through the legitimately free items.
Survey
72% of respondents have listed an item on an online marketplace.
I created a survey to understand what level of experience most users have buying and selling on online marketplaces. The survey revealed that 93% of respondents have picked up an item and that 75% have donated furniture and other household items before.
Survey Questions:
What online markets have you used before?
Have you ever sold anything on an online marketplace?
Have you ever bought anything on an online marketplace?
When buying from an online marketplace what information do you expect to see on the seller's profile page?
Have you ever browsed the "free" section on an online marketplace?
Have you ever donated furniture, clothes, or school supplies?
Personas
I developed two persons to represent the application’s two different user types based on the returned survey results and interviews.
Design Sprint
To understand the different users further we mapped out each of their available interactions before starting wireframes.
Prototyping
Version 1
After rapid prototyping, we began mapping out the intro and interactions for each user type. Our initial version was very feature-heavy and made space for things like messages and map functions.
Version 2
In our second iteration, we removed features that users found complicated the application. The user components were also changed to clarify which option is best suited to the user.
Version 3
After another round of testing, we made major changes to the application colors. Users thought that each account type should be visually different, so we assigned a unique color scheme to each user type. Testing also found that font heading sizes were too big so we reduced the size to better suit the visual hierarchy of the page.