My name is Morgan den Dulk and I am in my final year at CSU Sacramento pursing my Bachelor's of Fine Arts degree in graphic design.
Under the direction and supervision of Lauren Kelly, I was tasked with analyzing an experience familiar to me and improve upon any shortcomings to help alleviate any stressors that come with the experience.
I chose Beers Books in Sacramento, CA. Beers Books is a secondhand bookstore in Sacramento, CA. I love to read, I love shopping secondhand as much as possible to help reduce my personal waste, as well as supporting a local small business.
I love Beers Books' overall selection and their customer service, but I found that attempting to purchase books in the middle of a pandemic from a store that does not offer delivery as an option to be mildly frustrating. Beers Books made the tough decision to close browsing to the public more than once when cases of COVID-19 spiked in Sacramento, but still were open for curbside pickup. However, Beers Books has no way of viewing inventory online, and their website, in general, is underutilized. Customers must call (or email, but this seems to be an inefficient way to communicate with this store) Beers to ask about inventory, as well as paying over the phone by just reading numbers off of a debit/credit card. This is where my own frustrations came to light - I have social anxiety, and I don't particularly enjoy using the phone. This also seemed limiting and inaccessible to customers with disabilities that may prevent them from using the phone. I wanted to create a system where the inventory could viewed from the website and added to a cart, and provide a secure way to pay for books that would be picked up curbside.