My role and the team
My role
I worked as a UX Designer and helped with user research, wireframing, prototyping and UI designing.
Team members
Adam - UX Researcher
Amir - Visual Designer
Chang - Team lead, Growth
Adi bin Wira - Director, Marketing
Dara binti Putera - Manager, Supply
Project type
Research for an existing feature
Platform
Mobile
Research duration
6 months
Client
Research process
Design Thinking process
Deliverables
Contextual inquiry, empathy mapping, information architecture, wireframe, prototype, usability testing.
Project overview
CallDobi is a location-based mobile app for laundry service in Malaysia. The centrepiece of this app will be the fellow Malaysian people who will be the main users of the app as well. People will be able to download this app from both of the world-renowned platforms i.e. from Android(Google Play) and IOS(Apple Store) platforms. After downloading and installing the app, a registered person can knock CallDobi to pick his/her laundry at any required time and at any place, CallDobi pickup person will be there right at the doorsteps within ten minutes to collect their laundry! The person will also be inserting all the details of the laundry into the app simultaneously as well!
User - CallDobi has two different apps, and their users are also different.
Currently, the CallDobi app focuses on two different types of users. The first one is the end-user who uses the main Calldobi laundry app, and the other user is the pickup/delivery user who uses CallDobi pickup/delivery app.
The problem - the daily pickup conversion rate is very low compared to daily pickup requests.
Previously, before our research, CallDobi's pickup process was significantly prolonged. Because manually data entry from start to finish for each fabric was a very time-consuming process. The pickup person used to calculate manually everything such as how many fabrics are there, separates white and coloured fabric, selects detergent etc. This slow process was wasting time for both the user and pickup person. The primary purpose of this research was to find out how this whole process can be done faster without wasting much time for both parties.
Business goal
How might we improve the existing pickup process and increase the total number of daily pickups?
Why is this a problem?
The pickup requests were high, but they couldn't pick up all on time. According to their last six months data, it is clearly noticeable that the pickup requests are high, but if we compare this with the pickup demands, the total pickup per day is significantly less. Pickup persons are unable to complete all pickup requests in a day. It takes a lot of time to complete one pickup process. A pickup person spends considerable time entering data of each laundry item on the app. So, it is obvious that this slow process is harming the business a lot.
Understanding the business, interviewing stakeholders and analyzing initial metrics.
We decided to start from the beginning since we had no idea about the CallDobi product and its business model, goals, user. We went to their company and sat with their stakeholders, who are directly involved with this product. We had a couple of sittings with them along with our questionnaires. Fortunately, we have got some quantitive data. All these metrics helped us to get started with our initial research.
We as a team, always believe in a goal-driven and objective design process
As a team, we took an objective approach to redesign, testing and measuring everything from usability to aesthetics. We always believe in a goal-driven and objective design process, where decisions can be justified using research and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicator) rather than just opinion and hypothesis. Hence, we followed the Design Thinking process for solving both business and user goals.
Research plan
Before we jumped into the research phase, we had a couple of brainstorming sessions and made a proper and doable research plan.
Conducting contextual inquires to identify the potential problem
We decided to go to the user's place and conduct user interviews within the actual context. We wanted to see the whole pickup process in real-time. This contextual inquiry helped us to understand and observe both users (the person who is handing over all the laundry items for cleaning and also the person who is picking up the laundry). We asked questions and observed them found some significant pain points.
Empathy mapping
From our research and contextual inquiries, we created an empathy map to better understand the problems and mindset of users in an easily digestible manner. Having a more empathetic view of users allows us to organize our research into a coherent vision.
Solution
THE SOLUTION
Based on our research, we restructured the existing user flow, and the result was significantly remarkable.
After completing our first phase of the research process, we found a significant problem in the current user flow. Until the first phase of our research, all product information was being stored in the pickup/delivery app, and that was a time-consuming process. We have decided to move this whole process to the user end instead of the pickup person. It was our hypothesis. But we validated this change in our second phase of UX research with the end-user, and it worked very well. Also, we revamped the design of the "Add item" screen for a better user experience.
As a result, the conversion rate of the laundry pickup process has increased three times from the previous year.
Information architecture
Ideation
After compiling all of the findings, we conducted a brainstorming session internally and came up with different solutions to solving the problems. Finally, after detailed analyses, we selected a solution out of all and decided to validate it with the user in the next step.
Prototype and usability test
The prototype was then tested and iterated weekly over the remaining duration of the project. As is always the case, the initial experiments revealed various problems, from the originals that hadn’t solved and new ones that emerged from the new solution and flagged the way for weekly conversations with the stakeholders from the client’s side.
We recruited an existing user group (A housewife, a student and a pickup boy) to participate in a task-based think-aloud moderated usability test session. After the session, we handed out a System Usability Scale (SUS) Evaluation form and held follow-up interviews.
Based on our usability session, we believe that we have received valuable feedback, which did prove our initial hypothesis. We changed the existing UI design a bit because the current one looks very old school and boring. Also, we improved the interaction design based on the findings from the previous research.
Conversions / Metrics
CallDobi updated both of their apps according to our research and proposed solution. After six months of use, CallDobi generates considerable revenue in the market, and also their users were happy too. They send us some data, and we were all thrilled when we saw the unprecedented improvement in the "pickup" process. Here is a sample of their success picture:
Takeaways - We, as a team we learned a few lessons on the way of this project
The "contextual research" method was the best decision for a project like "CallDobi". Our research became much easier when we saw the fundamental problems of the people with our own eyes.
Improving the user flow and the interface was also a wise decision. As a result, we have solved user problems as well as achieved business goals.
Working closely with top decision-makers proved to be ideal.
Inviting clients in the research process made our process more smooth and helped us make design decisions quickly.
No doubt that we have succeeded in solving user's problems and also achieved business goals, but at the same time, we have ignored many minor issues. As per our research data, we have observed that the people have complained about the "Pickup boy's" attitude. There were some complaints about behavioural issues.
Existing users have taken some time to get used to the new flow and new interface. Because they had been using the old flow for a long time. We did not see any difficulty in the case of new users. We should have arranged some training inside App.
Finally, we felt we were in a rush with this project though we were entirely successful. But with a little more time, maybe we could have solved many more problems and could come up with far better solutions.
Retrospective - Celebrate our success and discuss our frustrations, fault and mistakes
Who doesn't like when hard work pays off! Clients have honoured us for the success of their business, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Everyone has worked on this project as a team. Overall the team bonding was very strong.
Of course, taking clients as part of our team and working together has been very helpful.
We were in a hurry for this project. We should have worked with more time.We should have run an A / B test before changing the existing user flow. Because changing the user flow was a precarious decision.
Pickup was the main problem, but there were many more unexpected issues besides that, which we overlooked due to lack of time.
