Problem Statements
We want to build a sustainable trio relationship between merchant - customer - Grab. The idea is to entice merchants to fund the discount to promote their business while Grab will be the platform to reach customer.
"As a merchant partnering with GrabPay, I want to promote my business and fund offers to acquire new customers from the Grab platform."
For customer, we want to push them closer to making their first purchase with new merchants on Grab platform.
"As a customer, I want to discover and be incentivised to try out new merchants."
How does Grab gain profit from this?
By claiming the voucher, the consumer registered his's explicit interest in a merchant, thus Grab can base on that to charge merchant for commission.
The more vouchers collected and utilised, the higher commission we gain.
The Concept
Although internally we assume that if a user collects a voucher, he likely will to go to the merchant and use it, however, how true is that? Grab users never had to do an extra step to enjoy any promotion on Grab, what would be the sentiment now?
To find the answer, we had a quick check with a behavioural scientist.
A dash of behavioural science...
Endowment Effect - In behavioural finance, endowment effect describes a circumstance in which an individual places a higher value on an object that they already own than the value they would place on that same object if they did not own it.
This brings the hypothesis: if the customer able to perceive the offer being "mine", then they will likely appreciate the value of the offer more than usual.
To find the answer, we had a quick check with a behavioural scientist.
A dash of behavioural science...
Endowment Effect - In behavioural finance, endowment effect describes a circumstance in which an individual places a higher value on an object that they already own than the value they would place on that same object if they did not own it.
This brings the hypothesis: if the customer able to perceive the offer being "mine", then they will likely appreciate the value of the offer more than usual.
So how might we make the user feel like the collectable offer is theirs?
The answer may lie in the Smart Shopper Hypothesis - Which is again another behavioural science statement. People get an ego-expressive kick from the feeling of doing an action to get a discount. These feelings can be enhanced by leading the user to feel responsible for the discount through taking actions such as collecting.
Sounds cool, is it a new thing?
The concept of collecting a digital voucher is not new hence has been well implicated in e-commerce and cash back platforms such as Lazada, Shopback and Amazon
There usually be a way to nudge the customer toward collecting the voucher, be it scarcity or illusion of enhancement.
The answer may lie in the Smart Shopper Hypothesis - Which is again another behavioural science statement. People get an ego-expressive kick from the feeling of doing an action to get a discount. These feelings can be enhanced by leading the user to feel responsible for the discount through taking actions such as collecting.
Sounds cool, is it a new thing?
The concept of collecting a digital voucher is not new hence has been well implicated in e-commerce and cash back platforms such as Lazada, Shopback and Amazon
There usually be a way to nudge the customer toward collecting the voucher, be it scarcity or illusion of enhancement.
Getting Started
To set a bit of context
• The feature is housed within an existing page called Neighbourhood Explore. Customers would be able to explore nearby merchants that are in partnership with Grab and able to pay with GrabPay when dine or shop at these stores.
• Seeing promotion/discount/deal/offer in Grab is nothing new, there are plenty of places around the app that user can encounter them in various forms. However, never before does the customer has to collect (or claim) the voucher in order to enjoy the discount. Hence the experience is relatively new to Grab user.
• Our job was to make sure the customer understands the new concept and able to utilise the offer.
Design Principles
It's always a good practice to start any design with a set of guiding principles. Despite many back and fort, the principles work as a base line for all the design decision and also be a north start for any argument. It's as simple as 3 bullet points, to remind ourselves during the design process.
• Intentional - Clear reason and purpose in actions to be taken
• Engaging - Sense of involvement through delightful interaction and feedback
• Seamless - Closes the loop with end-to-end frictionless flow
Design Breakdown
We ran a few rounds of sketching, drawing and exploration to produce the low-fidelity prototype and brought it to user test. The main flow is quite straightforward but we would go diverge beyond MVP to explore the opportunity then converge again to what is really feasible within the timeline and technical constraints.
• The feature is housed within an existing page called Neighbourhood Explore. Customers would be able to explore nearby merchants that are in partnership with Grab and able to pay with GrabPay when dine or shop at these stores.
• Seeing promotion/discount/deal/offer in Grab is nothing new, there are plenty of places around the app that user can encounter them in various forms. However, never before does the customer has to collect (or claim) the voucher in order to enjoy the discount. Hence the experience is relatively new to Grab user.
• Our job was to make sure the customer understands the new concept and able to utilise the offer.
Design Principles
It's always a good practice to start any design with a set of guiding principles. Despite many back and fort, the principles work as a base line for all the design decision and also be a north start for any argument. It's as simple as 3 bullet points, to remind ourselves during the design process.
• Intentional - Clear reason and purpose in actions to be taken
• Engaging - Sense of involvement through delightful interaction and feedback
• Seamless - Closes the loop with end-to-end frictionless flow
Design Breakdown
We ran a few rounds of sketching, drawing and exploration to produce the low-fidelity prototype and brought it to user test. The main flow is quite straightforward but we would go diverge beyond MVP to explore the opportunity then converge again to what is really feasible within the timeline and technical constraints.
Testing & Evaluate Design
Understand that collecting digital voucher is not necessarily new to the market but having it inside Grab platform, together with other existing product must be something worth checking. Eventhough the time given for design was tight, me and my design partner Gwendolyn felt strongly in to test this concept.
Like working under tight timeline wasn’t stressful enough, COVID-19 pandemic happened. In light of the unprecedented situation, we tried our best to conduct online interviews with 7 Grab customers from different user segments. It was challenging and yet interesting experience that the entire research process from planning, recruitment and execution were done remotely via phone call, video conference and email. It was more tedious compare to when we can talk face to face in the office, even internet and remote control didn’t want to cooperate. Regardless, it was worth to give the design a reality check. We came out of the 3 days test with a list of informative insights that bring much more confidence to our hand.
Like working under tight timeline wasn’t stressful enough, COVID-19 pandemic happened. In light of the unprecedented situation, we tried our best to conduct online interviews with 7 Grab customers from different user segments. It was challenging and yet interesting experience that the entire research process from planning, recruitment and execution were done remotely via phone call, video conference and email. It was more tedious compare to when we can talk face to face in the office, even internet and remote control didn’t want to cooperate. Regardless, it was worth to give the design a reality check. We came out of the 3 days test with a list of informative insights that bring much more confidence to our hand.
With every feedback and insight, we questioned our design with a new problem statement.
• Although most users have their guess on 'why' they have to collect the voucher before using it, many of them missed the small text indicates inventory "100 left" —> HMW help customer making sense of the friction while staying true and transparent on the product? On the other hand, if we keep showing the real-time number of how much inventory left, will it still create the hype when the number says "1000 left"?
• The skeuomorphic UI on the card though was intended to remind customers about the local BurgerKing's physical coupons, it received critic saying not only it was outdated style but also create too strong visual weight with excessing lines and texts in such small estate of the bottom sheet. —> HMW improving the layout to make it minimal but still maintain the key information to help the customer decide to collect the voucher?
• Internally we debated whether the customer has strong need to distinguish the newly collected voucher with other vouchers they have. Usability test findings suggest that customer don't necessarily differentiate which voucher is collected and which is freely given, but they do need guidance to know where they can find the offer when they need it. —> HMW help users understand where to access the collected voucher?
• Although most users have their guess on 'why' they have to collect the voucher before using it, many of them missed the small text indicates inventory "100 left" —> HMW help customer making sense of the friction while staying true and transparent on the product? On the other hand, if we keep showing the real-time number of how much inventory left, will it still create the hype when the number says "1000 left"?
• The skeuomorphic UI on the card though was intended to remind customers about the local BurgerKing's physical coupons, it received critic saying not only it was outdated style but also create too strong visual weight with excessing lines and texts in such small estate of the bottom sheet. —> HMW improving the layout to make it minimal but still maintain the key information to help the customer decide to collect the voucher?
• Internally we debated whether the customer has strong need to distinguish the newly collected voucher with other vouchers they have. Usability test findings suggest that customer don't necessarily differentiate which voucher is collected and which is freely given, but they do need guidance to know where they can find the offer when they need it. —> HMW help users understand where to access the collected voucher?
Final Design
Within a week after the user test, we came to our final design.
But if you notice, we intentionally use quite a few animations and interactions in this "simple" feature.
But if you notice, we intentionally use quite a few animations and interactions in this "simple" feature.
Why interaction? Can't we just keep it simple?
In many occasions, the product team may find doing interaction is a bit of extra effort and would prefer a simpler solution, especially with a tight timeline. On the other hand, as designers, we understand how just a tiny movement can bring a lot of meaning and so much delight to the experience. For this project, while adding friction is inevitable, we believed and have been proven right, that a bit of interaction would defeat the hassle. The behavioural term to explain this trade-off is called "Illusion of Control".
In many occasions, the product team may find doing interaction is a bit of extra effort and would prefer a simpler solution, especially with a tight timeline. On the other hand, as designers, we understand how just a tiny movement can bring a lot of meaning and so much delight to the experience. For this project, while adding friction is inevitable, we believed and have been proven right, that a bit of interaction would defeat the hassle. The behavioural term to explain this trade-off is called "Illusion of Control".
Illusion of Control
The belief that our actions have the power to impact and change a given situation. One good example is that a lot of people still actively pushing non-stop on the traffic light buttons for pedestrians in New York even though 80% of them are not actually work right.
The belief that our actions have the power to impact and change a given situation. One good example is that a lot of people still actively pushing non-stop on the traffic light buttons for pedestrians in New York even though 80% of them are not actually work right.
We evaluated a few common gestures in both iOS and Android to shortlisted 2 best ones. “Hold and slide” suppose to be the best choice and we did chose it for the first design. Giving users the option to swipe and collect makes them feel more in control and involved in the process. The more he is in control, the more he remembers the experience and feels the need to take the next action. Usability wise, it fulfilled the purpose, however, that particular gesture had been used for a very different use case in Grab that we thought it would be safer to use “long press” instead. Hence, in final design we use long press.
The Learnings
Wow you read through here!
Or did you just jump right here hmmmm? 🧐
Whatever it is, this must be the most important part of all. This project is one of the leanest projects I have done in Grab. It took less than a quarter from scratch till release-ready product, with a team of just 2 designers taking care of product design. With COVID-19 pandemic in the picture, everything from exploration, research, design execution till hand-over, we did it throughout without a physical meeting. It was challenging at first but with we learnt to get along with the situation eventually.
• Over-communication is the key. It was true that there was no *physical* meetings happened since we were in lock-down, but there were instead 5 times more virtual meetings than we usually have. I talked to my design peer so frequently, our calendars are full of 30 minutes sync up blocks just for two persons.
• Documentation saves our lives. Thank God for having me paired up with Gwen. She was like the pretty secretary who takes note of everything we discuss to Notion. We also have a shared to-do list for easy work split. It felt so good when I see the page was full of strike-through items.
• The Collectable Voucher was initiated by the business team to fulfils a business purpose. There was no strong customer needs to desire for yet another type of promotion. On the contrary to the norm, instead of making the new promotion similar to others, we add a bit of friction to justify its value proposition, making it a special type of offer that requires more attention. It was with the help of the behavioural scientist Preeti that we explored the psychology to prove our design decision.
• Interaction is not just a cherry on top but can be crucial to define an experience delightful or hassle. Since we already added the extra step of "collection", it becomes important to make it a nice extra. Keep that understanding in mind, we spent a large portion of time to explore, create and reject so many interaction options. With each of the trial we made, it came with new learning when we tested or shared with the design peers. Although it was tiring at times, we knew it worth and hopefully these learnings will save us time in the future.
Or did you just jump right here hmmmm? 🧐
Whatever it is, this must be the most important part of all. This project is one of the leanest projects I have done in Grab. It took less than a quarter from scratch till release-ready product, with a team of just 2 designers taking care of product design. With COVID-19 pandemic in the picture, everything from exploration, research, design execution till hand-over, we did it throughout without a physical meeting. It was challenging at first but with we learnt to get along with the situation eventually.
• Over-communication is the key. It was true that there was no *physical* meetings happened since we were in lock-down, but there were instead 5 times more virtual meetings than we usually have. I talked to my design peer so frequently, our calendars are full of 30 minutes sync up blocks just for two persons.
• Documentation saves our lives. Thank God for having me paired up with Gwen. She was like the pretty secretary who takes note of everything we discuss to Notion. We also have a shared to-do list for easy work split. It felt so good when I see the page was full of strike-through items.
• The Collectable Voucher was initiated by the business team to fulfils a business purpose. There was no strong customer needs to desire for yet another type of promotion. On the contrary to the norm, instead of making the new promotion similar to others, we add a bit of friction to justify its value proposition, making it a special type of offer that requires more attention. It was with the help of the behavioural scientist Preeti that we explored the psychology to prove our design decision.
• Interaction is not just a cherry on top but can be crucial to define an experience delightful or hassle. Since we already added the extra step of "collection", it becomes important to make it a nice extra. Keep that understanding in mind, we spent a large portion of time to explore, create and reject so many interaction options. With each of the trial we made, it came with new learning when we tested or shared with the design peers. Although it was tiring at times, we knew it worth and hopefully these learnings will save us time in the future.