Reimagining Christmas Markets
In this project case study, I will be sharing my experience designing a mobile app during a 5-day hackathon hosted by Adobe XD. The goal was to create an app that create experiences virtually during the closures of Christmas markets due to Covid 19. Throughout the process, I worked in a fast-paced design sprint going through all stages of the design and innovation process model of the double diamond. I focused on creating an intuitive user interface that would enhance the overall user experience and encourage engagement with the app.
Client
Adobe XD Hackathon
Year
2020
Role
UX Design, UI Design
Problem
Breaking down the project
Due to the Covid-19 crisis crowded spaces and close interactions pose danger to the health and safety of the public community. Christmas markets got cancelled all over Europe, including the famous Christmas market called “Winter Wonderland” that takes place in London each year, which gave the name to this hackathon. The cancellations of all markets represents a threat to local and seasonal businesses and craftsmen that heavily depend on the Christmas market.
Seeing the opportunity
Thanks to digital advancements, we can create experiences virtually to bring social, economic, and cultural benefits to our local communities and businesses.
Discover
Understanding the problem
To find the real pain points and to come up with creative ideas, we needed to listen to real users. The organizers of the hackathon acted as participants of an expert interview. We took notes on the challenges and frustrations mentioned. These biggest frustrations for the expert were:
absence of a place where local communities can get together and share a public space
lack of a space for vendors to sell/for customers to shop
absence of the typical Christmas shopping experience that makes Christmas so special with everything that comes with is: music, ice skating, games, food and drinks
Christmas markets are a crucial Christmas activity that is shared with friends and family and is a place to spend quality time together and bond with each other
"How might we?" & Ideation
We then rephrased these problems into “How might we?”-questions:
How might we create an online craft shop expo?
How might we replicate a community vibe digitally?
How might we create activities for friends and families to connect with each other?
…
We translated these ‘How might we?’-questions into mobile- or web-based ideas and ideated many possible solutions. We prioritized our findings in terms of feasibility and importance:
Prioritising solutions from the ideation phase
Iterate
”How might we recreate unique interactions between consumers and local, seasonal crafts people who are heavily dependent on the Christmas markets?”
Our findings in the research phase showed that a major concern was the lack of unique interactions between people and local, seasonal crafts people and vendors who are heavily dependent on the Christmas markets. These interactions take place only once a year and at no other time of the year. Our idea of “Christmas Handmades” was born!
Working on the Information Architecture
While working on the information architecture we came up with additional sections/functionalities to even further allow the users to get as close as possible to the “Live contact” with the merchants sections called “Workshops” and “Customise”.
Building Wireframes
Wireframes would give us just enough detail to be able to build our prototype and test it without the need to go into too much detail and would also allow us to move more quickly which is important for hackathons.
Solution
We created Christmas Handmades to connect consumers with local craftspeople, providing a digital platform for personalized gifts and decorations. The app also featured live craft workshops via Zoom, offering a Covid-safe alternative to traditional Christmas markets.
Moodboard & Color Palette: We wanted to go all out on the Christmas theme. Our color palette also conveys boldness and reflects having of a non-standard Christmas during Covid19-times.
Styleguide & Accessibility: We chose Helvetica Neue as our font to ensure users have a sense of familiarity when using the app, similar to the familiarity when attending Christmas markets. As our color palette is Christmas-themed and includes bold red and green as primary colors, we were aware from the start that they are not great in accessibility for people with red-green color blindness. This type of blindness is the most common variety of color deficiency in humans and affects about 8% of men and 0.5% of women. We used Stark to test our app for accessibility and made some changes. Here you can see the before and after.
Usability Testing Summary
Users provided key feedback to improve navigation, clarity, and usability. They suggested better filtering for live workshops, clearer button labels, and more detailed product information before purchase. Users also wanted customization details to be more transparent and distinct sections for shopping, customization, and workshops, possibly using different colors or icons. Additionally, some UI elements, like the trash icon and search bar in workshops, were deemed unnecessary.
These insights were valuable for refining the design, though implementing them fell outside the hackathon’s scope.
Sign up/Login
Home, Shop, Customise features
Workshop feature
Outcome
Scoring Top 5 in the hackathon
100 participants from all around the world joined this 5-day hackathon. More than 30 teams were randomly created and I got very lucky to get teamed up with Desislava Desseva. On the final day of the hackathon, the best apps were selected by the hosts and Christmas Handmades made it to the Top 5 awarded teams of the annual Adobe XD winter hackathon!
