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TIMELINE
Feb 2020 -
Apr 2021
CLIENT
NowFloats
HEAD OF DESIGN
Himani Auplish
TEAM
Shibin Shaji, Shinjini Ghosh, Tanvi Pradhan & Pratibha Bangar
ROLE & RESPONSIBILITY
Design Management, UX & UI Design
Indian retail market is expected to be worth $1.7 trillion by 2026 and it currently employs over 50 million Indians making it one of the biggest sectors in the country. Zadinga has been created to cater for the specific needs of small and medium business owners in the retail sector.
USER RESEARCH
Digital Desh Reports
Nowfloats have their own research division which has been researching and publishing about the changing relationship and behaviour pattern in India with respect to the ongoing digital revolution. We had access to 7 reports with in depth user research and insights which informed the UX strategy.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Zadinga is for the user who is understaffed, doesn’t have enough digital exposure and needs everything to be done in the shortest time possible with least effort.
Work-flow oriented design
The mantra of design is to simplify each process. The users could be handling multiple tasks offline and hence the clutter free strategy ensures that users can perform actions without getting overwhelmed.
Made for non-digital users
Most users in this market segment are not digital first. The learning curve is low and each page has its own support page that can be reached from anywhere easily.
For specific user behaviours
We solved for many peculiar user behaviours that might be unique to Indian customer-business interaction. Behaviours like bill and payment adjustments even after an invoice has been generated is just one of many.
FEATURES
The inventory has two levels with a product page and a variant page. This is done to limit action points and information to avoid cognitive overload. Each information point is relevant data they might need to take quick actions for example each product has indicators to show which one is available on the online store and which product is available for delivery. These settings can be changed easily.
The screen also provides a quick and easy access for adding new product to inventory.
If the users still get stuck then each screen has a “Help” button to facilitate learning and on-boarding for that specific task especially for users who are not digital-first.
1. Inventory Management
2. Gestures
The user needs the design to be quick and meet all their requirements with maximum speed and minimum effort. Hence gestures are a vital part of the design.
Swipe down on top to search on the current screen.
Swipe left or right to reveal quick actions like adding a product to bill or editing product details
Press & hold to select multiple products to create a bill via inventory screen
3. Add New Product
The engineers worked hard to make the tedious process of adding products faster and seamless. The barcode scanner can scan upto 13 barcodes together as there are often multiple barcodes on many products especially in electronics category. Product is automatically identified using the barcode scanner and details are auto-filled. Users can scan barcodes and add multiple products in one go. This section creates and saves multiple drafts to allows user to concentrate on adding or editing inventory in one go instead of saving one product at a time. An easy swipe left would take the user to add scanner page to add another inventory draft.
4. Billing
The user would spend their maximum time creating sales, hence the design allows the user to create bills through multiple channels as fast as possible.
Barcode scanning to add products is the default option as it would be the fastest way to create a sale. Searching a product via typing the name or voice to create a sale is the second option.
Many Indian small retailers would want to create a payment only bill and hence the CTA remains active even if no products are added. The user can edit the detail later.
Feature to hold bill (on top left) caters to a peculiar use-case where customers tend to request the shop to keep their order aside so that they can pick it up and pay later.
Once a barcode is scanned of a product that is not available in the inventory, “Quick Add” feature gets triggered. This is to ensure that users don’t have any obstruction in creating a sale at any point as that is the most important factor. The product gets saved in drafts automatically and the user can add it to their inventory at a later date.
5. Payment
Apart from providing all acceptable payment methods we designed for user behaviors that are unique to the market segment of SME retail. One of them being bill and payment adjustment (addition/removal/exchange) of product after an invoice has been generated. Users are also given the flexibility to split the mode of payment as that is a common customer demand.
App supports all payment options available in India
Updated bill after the product adjustments are made.
Mode of payment here has been split between two modes and three transactions
Dashboard design is task-oriented and very active. The user will always see fresh activity and new information when they view the dashboard or reports. Tasks are divided between “important” and “other” tasks so that users can prioritize their learning and on-boarding. Users can hide and ignore “other“ tasks however “important” tasks are always visible. In this way, the dashboard helps users learn about the app in a step-by-step manner.
6. Dashboard & Reports
7. Help
Since the users are slow and hesitant adapters of digital platforms, a robust and accessible help section was of utmost importance. The entry point for help is given on every screen and it directly opens topics for that particular screen with multiple options to view solutions like article, chat or video.
8. Taking the business online
The app allows the user to create an online store with integrated hyper-local delivery service. This helps them reach more customers especially during a pandemic when customer’s consumption behavior is shifting rapidly. The online store allows customers to either opt for home delivery or store pick-up.
User has to accept the order in a particular timeframe so that the user can be informed and that is shown by the progress bar. The user can also accept a partial order in case the inventory is mis-represented by the user and the product is low or out of stock.
PROJECT TAKEAWAY
Design to simplifying through collaboration and shared learning
I collaborated closely with the product manager from NowFloats and my biggest takeaway was to learn from his experience. I asked endless questions and argued to increase my understanding of the user and be able to create solutions for their peculiar and particular needs that giants like shopify cannot address. We were trying to integrate current user-behaviours with possibly new behaviour creation when it comes to store management for businesses mostly run by 2 or 3 people.
Apart from the above, I drove the design process to focus on how to identify and prioritise certain tasks for a user. Each section is created to perform a singular task and all the features work towards making that one task seamless, quick and easy. This approach reduced the learning curve get a lean product to the user.
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