VODAFONE DESIGNATHON 19: THE PROCESS AND THE TAKEAWAYS
This post shares the design process of the project that we worked on in Vodafone Designathon 2019. Keep reading to see how we redesigned My Vodafone App’s international roaming flows.
We were a team of three at Vodafone Designathon 2019: Berivan Atik (UX Researcher & Designer), Dilara Gül (UX / UI Designer) and Berilay Barboros (UI Designer).
When Berivan first told us about this event, there was no other choice: we had to be there! We had never participated in such an event before and since Vodafone is one of the biggest telecommunications companies in Turkey, this would give us the opportunity to work on a platform that is used by millions of people. One thing they asked when applying was our team’s name, and we decided on Avengers. This was the name of our current team in our company at the time, where we first became colleagues and then, friends.
Designathon was held in Beşiktaş Arena, which is a football stadium in the heart of İstanbul. We really felt that we were in a design competition because the event was prepared to keep in mind the participants’ needs. At the entrance, there was an airy lounge with comfy couches and tents for us to take rests whenever we needed it. Each teams’ tables were already ready with stationary equipment, whiteboards, markers, and custom-designed wireframe sketchbooks. The event started with insightful and conducive speeches given by renowned user experience researchers and designers. They told their own stories and also gave us tips on methods, strategies, time management and expectations.
Vodafone organized this event to improve its My Vodafone App. This app keeps track of your account with a view of your remaining calls, texts and data balance as well as a view of your usage history. Five different tasks were randomly assigned to 20 teams by the raffle. These 5 tasks aimed (1) to improve the prepaid and postpaid payment processes; (2) to increase usage by improving campaigns and prize games, (3) to increase the sales of deals and bundles, (4) to increase digital sales through the app and (5) to increase international roaming. When we first heard about these five tasks, all of us wanted to work on increasing international roaming because we recalled our recent problems when abroad and were well aware of some common pain points. And guess what? Luck was on our side, so we started working on increasing international roaming in My Vodafone App.
Planning
There was limited time, so deciding on the research and design methods that will work most effectively to get some user insights were crucial. We decided to use user interviews with heuristic evaluation as our methods. For user interviews, we chose users who spend more time abroad and fly more frequently, and our User Researcher and Designers Berivan and Dilara conducted the heuristic evaluation based on their professional experiences.
We determined the deadlines for each step (Image 2) of our final product and distributed the main tasks among us. In the beginning, all of us put out everything that we know about the current situation and did affinity mapping to understand what we need to focus on. After, Dilara started contacting some users and held in-depth interviews through the phone. She also did netnography research because important information about users’ behaviors, opinions and experiences can also be retrieved by their active presence. The findings were also added to the affinity map (Image 3). Findings and insights accumulated as Berivan focused on the creation of personas and user journey maps. And Berilay worked on the visual concept with a modular approach, starting designing the main user interface elements.
Research Process
First things first, we prepared a question list to dig deeper; collecting users’ stories and understanding their habits and needs. Specifically, our goal was to find out how My Vodafone users can get the best deals to use abroad, when and where there are challenges and opportunities. Limited time had to be used effectively; among the people we know, we chose a few ones who use My Vodafone abroad frequently. Each user interview took approximately 20 to 30 minutes. This had to be enough to collect the data needed. After the interviews, we analyzed the verbal responses of users and saw that a bunch of similar problems were outstanding.
To acquire more findings, we continued with another effective way: netnographic research. We chose this method since all we need is access to the internet and we know that if this method can be applied properly, it would give us the data directly from users whom we can’t get in touch with easily. We dived into Vodafone’s social media accounts and got users’ comments on them, collected posts where users mentioned Vodafone, and specified some groups of people like travelers, pilots, Erasmus students and went over their blogs to learn which operator they use, what they say about them, positively or negatively. Therefore, we collected a large amount of user data. The several user needs were apparent however besides the user side, as UX/UI designers we analyzed the existing app with 10 principles of heuristic approach. Based on the usability principles, we stated usability problems for the scope of all system and the international roaming usage scenario. Repetitive problems gather under the same headings; mapping, error prevention & recovery, recognition, and help.
After all these processes we had the insight of user needs, expectations and pain points. UX designers should be able to make connections between these insights. So to see the big picture we decided to continue with the customer journey map. CJM is a very useful method for understanding the current user process and also great to create an ideal user process.
Before starting the customer journey map, we need to decide which type of personas we will focus on. According to our insights, two main types of personas were formed: the ones who plan everything before they go abroad and the ones who do not. But while we were creating the CJMs, we also had to consider Vodafone’s segments and their common needs to make our process more realistic.
After we have our personas we started to create customer journey maps. There was only enough time to create just an ideal process map by considering the pain points of the current process. Berivan put together the elements of our maps that included the image and depiction of our personas, the app screen designs and brief statements forming the story. To create the ideal process we made ideation exercises during the journey map creating sessions.
Lo-fi Wireframes
CJMs started to give some ideas on the required functions in the app, so we were finally ready to work on the wireframes (Image6).
Guerilla Prototyping Test
The paper wireframes worked out great for us to understand we are on the right path because guerilla prototyping tests allowed making quick fixes on our wireframes.
After some sessions of guerilla testing, we redesigned our interfaces and also made some changes to the process that we created in customer journey maps.
UI Design
The time you spend on research is never wasted, yet the clock was ticking. That’s why we started creating basic user interface elements (Image 7) like buttons and form elements in the first hours. Sticking to Vodafone’s color palette and Vodafone Regular font for body texts shortened the visual concept creation process dramatically; only semi-rounded Lato was used as a headline font to add warmth and stability. The international roaming pages were polished with a semi-flat look. Elements that take you to another page were emphasized with shadows to show they are clickable and white spaces were used generously for better readability.
As the low-fi wireframes were being drawn, the final looks before the prototype tests were coming into sight. The creation of the hand-drawn wireframes went hand in hand with the UI design, and also the pages were simultaneously being transferred to the customer journey maps.
Prototyping and Polishing
The clickable prototype was made using Invision. Guerilla testing was conducted on this prototype to validate or invalidate critical decisions at rapid speed. While the tests mostly went smoothly, there were a couple of areas that required rethinking about flow. So, we continued this testing and modifying process until the deadline.
For example, it wasn’t clear how the additional services process worked so an explanatory brief text was included to encourage the user’s to get detailed information through the phone. We also did some wording changes on the Travel Planning screens because users didn’t think they would get personalized tariff offers, they thought they would only receive a travel itinerary. Lastly, the hierarchy of the details on the package cards was rearranged to firstly highlight what the users are interested in.
Final Presentation and Results 🏆
Our final prototype was handed over to the organizers of the event exactly at midnight. The 14-hour redesign marathon was over but teams were to give a final presentation the following morning. Since most of our presentation was ready, we polished its look for half an hour and went to our homes to get ready for the last stage of the Designathon.
On May 6th at 10 am, all teams were ready to present their final prototypes to the jury. Each team had 8 minutes and we were the 13th team to present. We explained our design process focusing on our user journeys because it is the most important part of deciding functions through the flow. Therefore, CJMs made our explanation easier and more effective. When all teams were done, the jury went to discuss the results for two hours and then we learned that we were placed 🥈 this year’s Vodafone Designathon.
Last Notes
In the end, we received a 10.000 Turkish Lira cash prize but the real prize was to see that three of us made a great team in terms of planning, execution, and delivery. Each of us had unique skill sets and personalities that balance each other, so we could deliver a comprehensive final product by working in harmony.
We suggest to newbie UX/UI Designers gather their friends and participate in design competitions like this one because it is a good exercise to put all your knowledge on the table and make connections with insights in a limited timeframe to provide a design solution. Also, you’ll easily see that design is not something that you do alone; collaboration and continuous feedback are the main things that improve your designs and yourself as a designer.
This was our first designathon but we don’t want it to be the last. Let us know if you hear about any interesting design competitions, because we have to check it out!
To discover more about me, check out my LinkedIn profile.
