Overview
Maoni is a digital platform that allows customers to review a business from which they’ve purchased a product or service or contacted customer service. Customers provide a star rating—from one to five—and leave comments about their experience with the company.
The reviews are a way for consumers to gauge the reputation of a given company and for businesses to gain an understanding of how customers view that company.
Why did we bother with this?
The client approached me with his vision of creating a unified platform, where users can get every piece of information they need, concerning any product or service they encountered.
Presently, finding reviews of products or services can be cumbersome because there’s no one place to look, and most people in this region rely on word of mouth to find necessary reviews. For instance, if I want to find out about a service I’ll like to try, I will have to ask people around me to find answers. Although this method might work for some, it leaves a lot to chance and heavily relies on the strength of a person’s network.
Research and Discovery
Maoni targets the Nigerian market and aims to cater to people looking for a trustworthy and seamless method to find reviews of places, products and services before deciding to invest in them. To further understand the audience using already existing ‘makeshift’ platforms, we took a look at some numbers and statistics.
I referred to these as makeshift because these methods may work but they weren’t designed for the purpose so therefore have a lot of limitations that reflect greatly on the general user experience, and interferes with the users ability to achieve their goals.
In addition, I found that in spite of the good number of users who depend on platforms like google places, bloggers or vloggers; there is still a huge need for a platform that aggregates all these diverse opinions onto one seamless and trustworthy platform.
User Interviews
Secondary research done on this subject has shown that, while a variety of age groups tend to rely on reviews before making a purchase, younger age groups, particularly millennials and Gen Z, tend to rely heavily on online reviews before making a purchase decision. According to a survey conducted by BrightLocal in 2020, around 91% of consumers aged between 18-34 read online reviews before making a purchase.
With this information in mind, I spoke with 5 youths within the afore mentioned age range (18-30), 4 out of 5 of them agreed to check a place on instagram before even considering visits, and if they had no presence, may not bother going there.
While about 3 of them agreed to surfing youtube looking for reviews of certain items before purchase and these reviews are mostly done by paid influencers therefore questioning the authenticity of the reviews. While just 1 of them swears by google places for all her service needs and amazon reviews for products.
Users and Audience
This product was developed to target the average Nigerian, more commonly youths who usually partake in the online-first approach to exploration.
I created a user persona to reflect an ideal user. And with this in mind, Maoni should focus on providing reliable and concise reviews that are easy to access and can be quickly sorted by location, type of product or service, and other relevant criteria.
The app should be user-friendly and optimised for use on a mobile device to cater to Kamsi’s on-the-go lifestyle. It should also feature a strong community aspect that allows users to connect and share their experiences with others.
User Persona
Competitor Analysis
From the competitive Analysis, we observed that the most widely used by youths remains social media channels like instagram, youtube and even Tiktok. But the issue with these is the authenticity as creators on these platforms are mostly paid to promote said products and services and not necessarily give honest reviews.
Amazon reviews remained the most authentic as each review is tied to a purchase, but these reviews are limited to just products only and not services. While trust pilot seems like a more rounded version it is mostly used by an older audience and can be expensive for businesses to maintain.
Takeaway
In order for us to differentiate ourselves from the competition, we would focus on the following;
1. Providing Nigerians a way to access and contribute authentic reviews on products they have used, places they have visited and even services that was rendered to them. Therefore building a community founded on mutual intrest and trust.
2. Ensure the platform is trustworthy and posts are authentic
Project Planning
User Flow
After the data was collected, I went ahead to plan the app. I came up with a user flow to ensure the user is able to both create reviews seamlessly and find reviews.
Information Architecture
I made sure to create a flexible and adaptable architecture that can be updated to meet the evolving needs of our users. This organise the navigation of the application.
Design
From research, we discovered that the biggest problem Maoni might face in the market is authenticity, which brought up some tough questions;
How might we ensure the posts are authentic so that the platform is perceived as trustworthy to users?
How might we encourage users to give their unbiased opinion on their purchases?
Design Decisions
Here are some design decisions made as solutions to the tough questions that were initially raised.
To ensure authenticity of post we included the following features in the design.
1. By providing an option to verify purchase by uploading receipt of product or service. This earns the review a verified purchase badge.
2. Making sure profile is complete, and account verified with full name and photo before posting a review.
3. Having a resource on the platform detailing how to spot fake reviews
4. Having the option to flag suspicious accounts or reviews. And implementing a logic to delete reviews or accounts flagged a certain number of times
High Fidelity and Final Design
Home screen
All Categories
Discover
Discover – Reviews
Product page
Takeaway
Understanding the existing constraints helped refine the design solution.
This project was a great reminder to me that my job as a designer is to make the best experience for the user while also considering the business needs.
