Overview
Dropie is a logistic application that connects logistics companies to customers, for both national and last-mile delivery of packages and parcels. It is primarily targeted at connecting small business owners to suitable logistic partners. So, it helps vendors send deliver their goods to their customers effectively.
Why did we bother with this?
Presently, there are a number of small businesses in my country’s capital city. And these businesses mostly thrive on logistics to operate as online operations have become a necessity in recent times, especially since the COVID pandemic that started in 2020.
As a make-shift solution, a lot of online businesses use bolt or Uber (passenger ride hailing services) as a logistic platform to deliver goods and services although that was not it’s intended purpose. And sometimes this causes a problem between the driver and the customer.
Also, although there are a lot of logistic companies in Abuja, they do not have proper visibility to the customers they need, and they usually operate via WhatsApp groups, without proper coordination organisation. As a result a lot of packages get missing, and sometimes these riders elope with customer goods.
Users and Audience
This product was developed to target three market segments, although it was developed in four modules.
The three segments include;
Small businesses who access to proper logistic platform.
Logistic companies who need proper visibility and access to the customer the need and a platform that would help them organise their business more efficiently.
Private vehicles or truck owners who have extra time and are looking for an extra source of income with their vehicles.
The last module covers the admin dashboard for dropie’s parent company, what we referred to as the “super admin.”
Starting with data
This was handled as a joint effort between the project manager and I.
I handled the main customer-facing app while the project manager handled the Agent app.
We had one-on-one casual sessions with a couple of business owners and riders. After which we gathered and shared the insights on a call.
As a business owner, I want to provide timely, and scheduled deliveries to my clients so that I can increase my customers’ satisfaction and retention.
As a logistic agent, I want to have a simpler app I can interact with, and have my movements updated automatically so I can have seamless deliveries.
How might we?
After we gathered the necessary data. We got on a call and brainstormed how exactly to achieve the users’ goals and ease their pain points. We considered doing a ‘how might we’ session but decided against it as our solutions were quite straight forward.
We went ahead to draw up a requirements list for the UI to solve.
For the users, we resolved to;
1. Provide a way for the users to schedule their delivery.
2. Provide a service where they can choose to stack multiple deliveries on each other. We called this ‘Errands’.
3. Provide a way to order and track multiple deliveries by different agents or even different companies.
4. Provide a way to add a check and balance to avoid wrong or accidental deliveries.
We also discussed our ideas with the two developers and made some minor modifications before we went ahead to the project planning phase, where we created user flows and user maps for both segments of users.
For the agents; we resolved to;
1. Provide a very simple and minimal User interface that allows the user complete the most important tasks
2. Provide a simpler way for the agents to update their location on the application.
3. Have automatic tracking where the customer can see the movement of the agents at all times.
4. Also have a check and balance to prevent accidental deliveries.
In addition, one advantage I observed from involving the developers early in the project was, having an understanding of which part of our propositions was feasible, while working with the resources available to us.
Project Planning
Ideation
Because I agree with the principle;
“Never go with your first design”
I created a couple of versions and had multiple iterations before we choose the final layout of the product for both the customer app and the user app.
Takeaways from the this iteration.
From the revision of the first design I came up with; we discovered the following and made changes accordingly.
1. The main buttons were not very distinguishable. So we added bigger icons for more visual cues.
2. We streamlined the delivery flow process to cater for “quick delivery” and “detailed delivery”. These were differentiated by the amount of details necessary to facilitate delivery.
3. We also grouped the delivery process and made it easier to navigate.
Final Design of Customer App
