vende
OVERVIEW
vende is an on-demand mobile application designed to help connect customers and street vendors to ensure successful transactions and product sales.
This is a project that continues to be developed to better the mobile application design, as well as an addition of a web interface component.
ROLE
Product Designer
Research, User Flows, Sketching, Wireframing, UI, Prototyping
Timeline – 5 weeks
Tools – Figma, Photoshop
The Challenge
Lack of an accurate connection between customers and street vendors
- Customers do not have accurate information about a street vendor’s current hours, menu, or location.
- Vendors don’t always have access to digital payment and lose customers who don’t have cash for transactions.
- Customers struggle to find mobile vendors that sell items near their location when they can’t travel to a fixed location.
The High - Level Goal
Create a platform to provide on-demand services to ensure successful transactions
- Allow customers to search and access a vendor’s profile that is created directly by the vendor to provide instant and accurate information.
- Provide digital payment options for customers to utilize to pay vendors when cash is not an option.
- Create a feature to connect mobile street vendors and customers to request on-demand services based on their location.
Outcomes
Create a platform to provide on-demand services to ensure successful transactions between customers and street vendors.
By allowing users to fully understand their goals based on the type of profile selected, users have an immediate interaction to expected decision points.
Instant + Accurate Profiles
Allow customers to search and access a vendor’s profile that is created directly by the vendor to provide instant and accurate information to customers.
Users can browse nearby vendors or search for a vendor and select the type of results they’d like to view. Users can select a vendor and view their profile to obtain the latest information.
Digital Payment Options
Provide digital payment options for customers to utilize to pay vendors when cash is not an option for customers.
Users can select to digitally pay the vendor through their profile and ensure a transaction for the vendor.
On-Demand + Mobile
Create a feature to connect mobile street vendors and customers to request on-demand services based on their location.
Users can view the vendor’s fixed location if they are a stand or a current location if they are mobile. Providing the user with the ability to raise their hand to alert the street vendor they are interested in purchasing an item from them.
Design Process
Discovery
Competitive Analysis
There was only one application with a similar intent, but had not been maintained. Looking at Streetstop, Yelp, and Google, I wanted to evaluate what works and what frustrates users. Users like simple visuals to encourage quick actions to achieve their goals. Reliable and accurate information encourages users to customize their platform for more usage.
Findings
User Research
I wanted to learn about how a connection can be made between customers and street vendors to easily access their most needed tasks for a successful transaction: search for nearby vendors, find latest information about a vendor, and utilize digital payment to ensure returning customers for the street vendor.
I conducted phone interviews and created a survey that was completed by 30 participants.
The survey was great for quickly gathering information from a sample of my target audience, while the interviews allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the participant’s behaviors.
The main takeaways from the methods are:
Users seek minimal and accurate information when first approached by an interface
Users seek options that reach their location instead of traveling to find them
Users utilize digital payments to maximize their time and experience when purchasing
Define
Brainstorming Features
To brainstorm features for the product roadmap, I created How Might We and using insight from my research.
How might we help Claudia reach useful and accurate vendor information when first approached by interface?
- Showing initial search function to find her needs
- Clear and direct vendor profile information
How might we help Jonny find options that can travel to him instead of him traveling to location?
- Create platform for mobile street vendors
- Provide clear separation between mobile vendors and fixed vendors
How might we help Fern gain new customers and retain returning ones to his business?
- Provide the use of digital payments to encourage more users
- Provide a mobile vendor function for vendors to connect with customers
User Flows
I developed a flow that allows for seamless and cohesive user experience with out dead ends. Given that the user may be signing in, browsing searching for vendors a route, using digital payment, and requesting on-demand service, users have the ability to select their decision points from the start. This flow caters to two types of users:
- New and returning users who can search the platform after login
- Returning street vendors who wish to access their dashboard
Sign In to Home
Raise Hand for On-Demand Service
Digital Payment for Vendor
Ideation
Wireframes
By now I have already gathered enough information to get started with the wireframes. I created this set of low-fidelity wireframes of all of the key screens needed to complete the main user tasks that I will be testing for: searching for route, searching for a bus stop, saving favorites, and accessing a mobile pass .
Onboarding
Sign in
Landing to Search
Raise Hand for On-Demand Mobile Service
Digital Payment Options
Validation
User Testing
This was conducted on a high-fidelity prototype on a mobile phone to see how users would complete certain tasks once they were given some context. The goal was to identify pain points that could be improved in future iterations. Tasks tested for:
- Browse and search for street vendors
- Raise hand for mobile service from
- Pay vendor
Participant Profiles
Name Age Gender Education Profession
Lorena 44 F Highschool Manager
Eric 24 M Bachelor’s Designer
Veronica 32 F Master’s Business
Jim 28 M Associate’s Sales Agent
Participant Profiles
Name Age Gender Education Profession
Lorena 44 F HS Manager
Eric 24 M Bach. Designer
Vero 32 F Master’s Business
Jim 28 M Associate’s Agent
GOALS
- Test product concept with target audience.
- Reveal points of friction and confusing experiences.
- Identify bugs and issues with the product.
Conflicts + Results
Raise Hand Before
- Small icons with hard visibility
- Customer status was not clear when hand was raised
Raise Hand After
- Enlarge icons to create more clear visibility
- Highlight customer status after
Home + Results Before
- Small icons on homepage and search results with hard visibility
- Accent colors not useful to reflect important information, such as time and distance
Home + Results After
- Enlarge icons to create clear visibility
- Accent colors reflect importance of information provided
Takeaways + Next Steps
- User testing doesn’t end after development. Design is a constant iteration of improving the experience for the end user. Always find ways to collect and listen to your user’s feedback.
- Focus on the problem. It is your users pains that you will be solving for so keeping that in mind at all times is essential, as it is easy to lose sight of this when you’re part of other tasks through the day.
Measuring Success
I would gauge how successful the design is through the following weekly/monthly activities:
1. Accounts created
2. Transactions made
3. On-demand requests
Keep testing to improve experience
Develop the vendor platform further for a website component, as well as continue to test and improve the design and development of the customer platform.
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