The one with a mobile app solution for ‘Life during Pandemic’
At Your Service
People stuck at homes during lockdown can order any types of services from their local community using this app. Essentially, it’s like a Human Uber.
Estimated Impact of this app
Qualitative Impact: This app creates an avenue for unemployed people and skilled workers to earn money and help in essential services. In this way they help themselves and others. Win win for everyone providing huge social and personal Impact.
Quantitative Impact: At Your Service app can help at least 5.1 million small and medium businesses and provide employment opportunities to 2.4 million people all over India (explained in the video above)
Role
As a Team lead (Team of 5 members) I helped in the problem discovery phase, identify a business opportunity, designed & tested prototypes of our app idea.
Team
5 Members (1 Product Designer, 1 developer, 3 MBA Students)
Duration
3 Weeks.
Tools & Skills
Tools: Sketch, Balsamiq, Final Cut Pro, Google Forms
Skills: Problem Space identification, Research for validation of our assumptions, Target Audience, User Research (to gather needs), Persona, Solution Brainstorming, User Flow, Sketching, User Testing, Wireframing, User Testing, High Fidelity Mockups, Business Model Canvas, Competitive analysis
How to identify a problem with big impact and design an app for it?
Design Prompt
“No one knows how long this lockdown due to the pandemic last. It’s time to think digital solutions to solve problems.
Identify a problem and design a solution to solve it. The solution should be good enough to work even after the pandemic is over. “
Problem Space Identification
It was difficult to find a good problem amongst so many.
So we used First Principles Thinking inspired by Elon Musk to begin our problem discovery.
Lockdown Scenario in India was not great
We found that there is a huge unemployed workforce sitting at home, desperately waiting to start earning again. There is a noticeable gap between service need and service providers.
How would a 50 year old woman get her medicine without going out?
How would a small business owner find delivery boys?
How would an electrician (skilled worker) get job requests?
How can they all earn money?
We decided to solve the problem of ‘no jobs’ and ‘need for essential services’
How can we help people and small businesses provide and receive service and also earn money in their local areas?
Why did we select this problem Space?
Food, Water and Clothing are the basic needs
One can maintain and good life only after she gets these basic needs
But there are things that enable our basic needs. We decided to target that.
The Research Investigation Began
We collected data by sending out a survey.
We sent the survey to friends, family and small business owners in our local area.
What sources of income does the family have at the moment?
How much time do you spend online?
How has lockdown affected your family budget?
Will you be willing to work and earn from Home?
We also conducted an In-depth Interview of a small business owner
These are the key user comments.
“My supply chain is almost shut down... like his vendors are mostly in red zones so they are not able to provide him with the stuff to sell”
“Logistics are an absolute nightmare... no vendor is ready to send their people for delivery so I have to go on my own to the outlets and get the packets.”
“We have stopped home delivery because of staff shortage”
“My staff is either not able to come to work because they live far away, are planning to go back to village, extreme shortage”
After the analysis of the data, we narrowed down our target users’ characteristics.
Profile
Job Title: middle class/common man
Gender: All gender
Family Setting: Both nuclear and joint
Demographics
Income: Rs. 2000 - 10000Education: 10th std minimum
Assumption: They have smartphone and internet access.
Feelings
Values & Goals: survival
Worries: scarcity of resources, lack of income
Influences: lack of ability of services
Objections
Fears: Lack of trust, Savings, Hygiene , Service provider is safe or not, what about the refunds
Our Solution: At Your Service App
Using At Your Service users can
become service provider and search for jobs
become app users and request for services
A mobile app that works well for the current lockdown situation. We designed solution for both categories of lockdown:
Lenient (7am to 2pm) - Normal Mode
Strict (9pm to 5am) - Curfew Mode
Service Providers Personas
Factory Worker
Skilled Laborer
App Users Personas
Homemaker
Small Business Owner
UX Design Process: We validated each design decision with research
User Flow of the App
During our brainstorming session, we discussed the user flows and the general features of the app.
The features of the app were derived from the goals.
The goals were derived from the pain points collected during user research.
Once we had a flow, I rapidly sketched the designs to get user feedback.
We had a small user testing session to get feedback on the user flow. We used these sketches for usability testing.
Considering the feedback from the initial user test, I designed these wireframes.
User Flow
Service Provider Flow
Normal Mode and Curfew Mode
We designed solution for both categories of lockdown:
Lenient (7am to 2pm) - Normal Mode
Strict (9pm to 5am) - Curfew Mode
Normal Mode (User Journey)
User will enter pin code and type of EMERGENCY service needed
List of At Your Service (AYS) Service Providers (SP) will appear
User will book the AYS SP
SP will provide service and get paid through the app
User will rate the SP on app
Things to note:
At Your Service (AYS) SP will be employed by our company
These AYS SP will be thoroughly vetted and will own all needed certificates
AYS SP is responsible for his and others safety
Curfew Mode
User will enter pin code and type of EMERGENCY service needed
List of AYS SP will appear
User will book the AYS SP
SP will provide service and get paid through the app
User will rate the SP on app
Things to note:
At Your Service (AYS) SP will be employed by our company
These AYS SP will be thoroughly vetted and will own all needed certificates
AYS SP is responsible for his and others safety
Final Mockups of the App
The user feedback was really good. They liked the concept and flow of the app.
Findings and Learnings
What did we learn?
At Your Service has a huge social and monetary impact.
It provides a platform to generate income by creating employment.
Generates a Marketplace
Helps Small Businesses
We have a virtual human workforce available at our disposal.
That can help us solve the problem of supply chain, basic human behavior & needs are the same globally.
It is an urgent problem.
Through our research survey, we found out that lower middle class families are affected the most. About 40% of them have lost their jobs. There are two main areas that need urgent attention. Getting service and earning money.
We also thought about
Market Size.
We chose Mumbai city with the population of 18.3 million to start with. We found that Middle class people and small businesses were the most impacted due to the lockdown.
Mumbai has 9.7 million middle class people.
There are around 10 million small & medium sized businesses in Mumbai.
Execution Plan.
We plan to release this app in phases.
Our MVP will first be released in the city of Mumbai.
We also plan to start with 4 essential services and then add more services based on customer demands.
In phase one we are focusing on mobile app but going forward we plan to increase channels such as having a website and customer support center where people can book services by phone call.
Competition.
Urban clap (for services)
House joy (for services)
Facebook's recent initiatives for small businesses
Jio mart (for kiryana stores)
All these apps lack support for lockdown specific needs
Future of this Product
Get government funding as this product aligns with government’s vision and programs such as
MGNREA - Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act
Normal Mode and Curfew Mode can be combined when the lockdown is lifted completely.
Donation feature where people can donate things
Maps showing the current location of the Service Provider
Arogya setu connection to the app
Competitive Advantage.
Flexibility
Technological simplicity
Uses resources of the locality for improvement and demand full filling of locality
Provides services according to specific user needs and budget
Plans after lockdown?
Plans after lockdown will be offering the same services with just making them available for 24hrs.
The normal and curfew mode will be combined.
More services will be added based on demand.
What was the final outcome of this work?
We were amongst the Top 30 finalist amongst 600 submissions with 1500+ participants across 10+ countries.
Won Finalist Award
My main goal was to help my brothers learn from this exercise!
We didn't win!
But we are super PROUD that we got to LEARN so much! 😄🤩
We are Team Karma (Neeraj Gupta, Bobby Chatwani, Lalit Doolani, Bunty Punjabi and me ☺️). We participated in an International Design Challenge to solve problems due to the pandemic lockdown organized by UMO.DESIGN
It was an incredible journey as we got an opportunity to experience everything from ProblemDiscovery, MarketResearch to Design, and ProductStrategy.
All this wouldn't have been possible with the awesome mentorship of Parag Deshpande, MBA, M. Des. 😊
First Principles Thinking works wonders. We found a problem worth designing for.
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