A captivating vision takes flight:
Design a simple service summary and delivery tracking mobile-web app for a shipping company that uses drones
Imagine a world where critical medical supplies reach remote communities with speed and reliability. Envision construction projects running smoothly, with materials arriving precisely on schedule. This vision becomes reality with Zepp, a mobile-web app designed for a groundbreaking drone-based shipping company.
As a UX designer, enrolled in the Google UX Design Professional Certificate program, intrigued by the potential of drone deliveries to revolutionize logistics, particularly in remote areas, I embarked on a journey to create Zepp, empowering users with real-time tracking and streamlined delivery management, particularly in areas often plagued by logistical challenges.
This case study chronicles the design journey.
Understanding the Challenge: Bridging the Distance Gap
Traditional delivery methods often struggle in remote locations, causing delays and disruptions. Rural communities face stockouts of essential supplies, while time-sensitive projects experience setbacks due to unpredictable deliveries.
Role and Responsibilities
In this project, I donned the hat of a UX Designer, leading the entire design process for Zepp. This involved conducting user research, crafting user personas and user stories, developing the information architecture and user flow, and creating prototypes for usability testing.
To tackle this challenge, I employed the Design Thinking methodology, a user-centered approach that prioritizes empathy and iterative problem solving.
Empathy First: Immersing Myself in User Needs
User Profiles & Empathy Maps
The foundation of any successful design lies in understanding user needs.
To kickstart my understanding of potential Zepp users, I began empathizing with fictional user profile bios: short biographies that describe the demographics and goals of people who stand in for real-life user groups (e.g., rural pharmacists, event organizer, construction managers). These profiles helped me identify who would benefit most from Zepp’s services.
Taking empathy a step further, I then crafted in-depth empathy maps (think mind maps on steroids!) based on these user profiles. These maps captured users’ thoughts, feelings, and pain points regarding traditional delivery methods, allowing me to truly empathize with their challenges.
Refining Understanding with User Personas & User Stories
Leveraging the insights gleaned from user profiles and empathy maps, I delved deeper into user needs by crafting detailed user personas. These personas, like Dr. Hernandez, a rural pharmacist facing difficulties maintaining a stock of critical medications, and Mark Thompson, a construction project manager struggling with unreliable deliveries that threaten project timelines, provide a comprehensive picture of users’ experiences. Each persona includes biographical details, goals, and frustrations related to deliveries.
User stories then became my way of translating these persona needs into actionable statements. By outlining user stories from various perspectives, I could prioritize features that directly address user pain points and ensure the Zepp app effectively caters to their needs.
Dr. Sarah Hernandez User Story
As a rural healthcare provider, I need reliable medication delivery to ensure timely prescriptions, avoiding patient health risks due to delivery delays.
Mark Thompson User Story
As an efficiency-driven project manager, I need fast and reliable delivery of construction materials to prevent costly project delays and maintain productivity on-site.
Journey Map
Finally, I created a user journey map specifically for Dr. Hernandez. This map visualized her experience, from receiving a critical medication order to ensuring its timely delivery, highlighting key touchpoints where Zepp’s app could intervene and improve her workflow.
Defining the Problem & Crafting a Solution
Problem Statement, Hypothesis Statement & Value Proposition
By immersing myself in the user experience, the core problem became clear:
Problem statement
Dr. Sarah Hernandez is a rural healthcare provider who needs reliable medication delivery because access to timely prescriptions is crucial for patient well-being in remote communities.
Remote communities and time-sensitive projects struggle with the limitations of traditional delivery methods. My hypothesis statement, formed as a design solution, was this:
Hypothesis statement
If Dr. Sarah Hernandez uses Zepp, then medication delivery will be faster and patient care improved in remote areas.
By creating a user-friendly mobile app with real-time drone delivery tracking, Zepp will improve delivery efficiency and user satisfaction, especially in remote areas.
In a competitive landscape, clearly articulating a value proposition is crucial for any product or service. It succinctly explains the unique benefits a user gains by interacting with our offering. For Zepp, a mobile-web app for drone-based deliveries, a strong value proposition was essential to attract users and differentiate itself from traditional delivery methods:
Value proposition
Zepp revolutionizes the shipping experience by offering unparalleled speed, reliability, and convenience. By harnessing drone technology and providing real-time tracking features, Zepp saves users valuable time and effort, ensuring their shipments arrive promptly and without hassle.
Ideation: Exploring Solutions & Understanding the Landscape
Goal Statement
Having established the core problem and the value proposition Zepp aims to deliver, it’s crucial to define the guiding principle for the app’s design. This principle is captured in the goal statement, which succinctly outlines the primary user experience objective:
Goal statement
Our Zepp app will let users track drone deliveries in real-time, which will affect users who rely on timely deliveries by reducing anxiety and ensuring efficient receipt of packages. We will measure effectiveness by monitoring user satisfaction ratings and delivery success rates.
This goal statement serves as a north star, guiding all design decisions throughout the development process. It ensures the app remains focused on core user needs and functionalities, ultimately delivering a user experience that is both intuitive and efficient.
Competitive Analysis
To ensure Zepp carved a unique niche in the drone delivery app market, I conducted a thorough competitive audit. This analysis involved evaluating two direct competitors and one indirect competitor, scrutinizing their desktop and mobile/app experiences across four key areas: first Impressions, interaction, visual design, content.
The results of this competitive analysis, documented in a detailed report, revealed valuable insights:
- First, competitors often lacked clear communication about service details within their apps, highlighting the importance of transparency for Zepp.
- Second, opportunities existed to improve user interface design and navigation across competitor apps, paving the way for a more intuitive and user-friendly experience with Zepp.
- Additionally, while some competitors excelled in specific areas (e.g., Zipline’s focus on medical supplies), Zepp could leverage these insights to incorporate unique features and cater to a broader range of needs.
By identifying these strengths and weaknesses within the competitive landscape, the competitive audit paved the way for creating a truly user-centered design for Zepp’s app.
Prototyping: Bringing the App to Life
With a clear understanding of the user’s journey through Zepp’s app, it was time to breathe life into the concept. This phase, prototyping, is where Zepp’s app began to take shape, transforming the user flow from a theoretical construct into a tangible, interactive experience.
User Flow
The user flow diagram served as a blueprint for the prototyping process. By following the steps outlined in the diagram, I could ensure the prototype accurately reflected the core functionalities users would encounter within the app.
For instance, the diagram highlighted the importance of features like entering a tracking number, viewing real-time delivery status on a map, and receiving notifications upon completion. These functionalities became the foundation for the prototype’s development.
Storyboards
Storyboards played a crucial role in visualizing the user experience at different levels.
A big-picture storyboard provided a broad overview of the user journey, encompassing touchpoints that might even occur outside the app. For instance, a pharmacist receiving a prescription, checking inventory, realizing a medication is out of stock, placing an order through Zepp, and tracking the delivery. This ensured the app integrated seamlessly into existing workflows.
A closed-up storyboard focused on specific interactions within the Zepp app itself. This included logging in, placing an order, tracking the drone’s location on a map, and receiving notifications. These closed-up views helped identify usability issues within the app’s interface and refine the user experience.
These storyboards helped identify potential usability issues and ensure a smooth user flow within the prototype.
Wireframes
The initial design exploration began with 5 paper wireframes versions, which are low-fidelity sketches of the app’s interface that allowed for rapid iteration on design concepts and facilitated user testing. These paper wireframes focused on the core functionalities outlined in the user flow diagram.
Following this exploration, a sixth and final paper wireframe version was created, incorporating the most successful elements from the previous versions.
They were then used to create a paper prototype for basic user testing and feedback. This early stage of prototyping allowed for quick iterations and adjustments based on user insights before investing significant time and resources into development of more complex digital prototypes.
As the design phase progressed, I transitioned paper wireframes to digital wireframes using Figma, integrating research findings. This ensured that digital wireframes accurately reflected user needs and preferences, setting a strong foundation for the app’s development.
Incorporating the primary functionality of drone tracking on the map, wireframes emphasized clear visualization and user-friendly interaction. By prioritizing this feature, users can effortlessly monitor drone movements, enhancing their overall experience with the app.
Low-fidelity Digital Prototype
Following paper prototyping, I developed a digital prototype using Figma. This allowed for more refined visuals and interactive testing with users. The digital prototype enable users to interact with the app’s interface in a more realistic way, providing valuable feedback on navigation, information hierarchy, and overall user experience.
UX Research & Test: The User in the Driver’s Seat
UX research study plan
A well-defined UX research study plan served as my roadmap for the testing phase. This plan outlined the research objectives, target audience, methodology, and data collection methods, ensuring focused user testing that would deliver valuable insights.
Specifically, the plan aimed to:
- Evaluate Zepp’s tracking feature effectiveness (meeting user needs & expectations, especially in remote areas)
- Identify early-stage usability issues for improvement.
To achieve these goals, I conducted an unmoderated usability study remotely in Spain (March 25th-29th, 2024) with a diverse group of participants (23-65 years old). The study utilized a script to guide participants through 5-10 minute sessions on their devices, gathering feedback on initial app impressions, desired tracking features, navigation, and overall user experience.
This comprehensive approach ensured the testing phase collected focused data to refine Zepp’s delivery tracking feature and deliver a user-centered experience for those in remote locations.
Lights, Camera, Test!
Next Step: Evaluating Zepp’s Usability
This case study chronicles the initial design journey of Zepp, a mobile-web app for drone-based deliveries (a project undertaken for Google’s UX design professional certification program). By prioritizing user needs throughout the development process, Zepp has the potential to revolutionize delivery experiences, particularly in remote areas.
The core functionalities have been established, and the next crucial step is to refine the design through usability testing. These tests will gather valuable user insights on the app’s effectiveness, particularly its tracking features, and identify areas for improvement.
By incorporating user feedback throughout the design process, Zepp will be well-positioned to deliver a user-centered experience that offers efficiency, reliability, and peace of mind for users in diverse locations, especially for critical deliveries in remote areas.
This concludes the initial design phase of Zepp. Stay tuned for exciting updates as user research sheds light on the app’s future iterations!