Taking a Product from 0 to 1
Improving business efficeny with a bespoke digital soultion
Client: Dauus
Dauus is a consumer products company that manufactures products and sells them to independent stores. They would like to create an app that would handle their lower-touch clients and reduce the workload for their sales reps.
From the brief:
“Dauus currently serves 6-8k unique stores a year. About half of those stores buy less than $1,000 a year. We want to offload the support and servicing of those stores to an app that directly integrates with our sales, and finance systems.”
The Challenge
Design an app that would allow Dauus’s commercial customers(independent stores) to order products and would integrate well with existing Dauus systems.
The Outcome
Still in progress…
So far I have sketched and developed my designs to the stage of a clickable Figma prototype with stand-in data.
I am awaiting client feedback, tying up loose ends, and preparing for developer hand-off.
Time
>3 weeks, part-time
Role
Sole Designer
Current Prototype:
Still working on some of the details, but this is the current state of affairs:
Week 1: Digesting the Brief and Developing Initial Sketches
To get things started, I read through the brief I had been sent and wrote it out in my own words to better integrate the information.
I drew a simple user-flow of the steps and functionality that had been outlined in the brief.
Next, I drew out an additional user flow, this time with very basic screen sketches to begin to think through how various aspects of the app might be organized.
Next, I brought my designs to the computer and began to develop a simple digital wireflow.
I used this stage of the process to discover questions to bring up with the client during our next meeting.
Since I am designing a store-type app, I decided to look at examples including the Amazon and Uniqlo apps to glean design patterns and consider ways of structuring the information and functionality.
At the end of the first week, I had a fair amount of the designs roughed out and was ready to meet with the client to check in and get some answers to questions that had surfaced.
Week 2: Developing Core Functionality
The meeting with Dauus Leadership was quick and productive. My questions were answered, I was supplied with a Dauus Brand Guide, and they were generally happy with my work thus far.
I went back to sketching on paper to figure out how some of the remaining key screens might be structured.
I then returned to Figma to develop those designs and try on different alternatives.
I also drew out a mixed wireflow that used text to stand in for the screens I had yet to create. This helped me to identify what still needed to be designed and keep track of desired functionaliy.
In preparation for the next meeting, I organized my questions and projected a roadmap to help keep things focused and productive.
Week 3: Adding Color, Developing Designs, and Creating a Prototype
This week was focused on developing the specificty and feel of the UI.
I spent the majority of my time developing designs on the computer and testing them on my smartphone to make sure they felt right.
I also found out that Dauus plans to have its Sales Reps assist customers with initial app setup, so I decided to keep the design of this sequence very straightforward since it will be used by Dauus Employees.
I continued to develop the core pages of the app and am still fine-tuning the designs.
Over the next few days, I plan to tie up loose ends with the designs and prepare to hand them off for development.
Thanks for reading about my process so far, and I’ll update as I go!
Fiona Sergeant 