MOBILE & WEB APP
Devtown
Devtown is a closed user group lending app that allows individuals to lend money for Real estate business.
METHODOLOGY
Agile
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
YEAR
2017
COMPANY
naamtech
OBJECTIVE
To make borrowing easier and quicker for real estate business as well as facilitate the high net worth individuals invest in Real Estate.
UNDERSTAND
I had little to no brief on this product, so to understand the market and user better I went out and talked to the banks about the loan process for the business, the documents required for the loan to be approved and wait periods involved. Then I spoke to one of the real estate builders about the problem they are facing while applying for loans. I also attended a meetup held by a lending group to understand the problem they are facing on both Lender and Borrower sides. I also spoke to some of the Borrowers and Investors after the meetup. With the knowledge gained from the above activities, I was able to document the problem statement.
RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
With a better understanding of the market and user requirements, I facilitated a workshop with the product owner/GM and technical head to decide on the device and technology.
Based on my research, the business wanted to track their loan process anytime, anywhere. However, the lending process required the business to upload large files which are usually stored in their Desktop or Laptop. With this insight, I proposed a feature full native mobile app to track the loan process and communicate - also, a web app for creating projects and handling large file uploads.
The Lenders/Investors being Individuals they wanted to look for investment options on the go and save the investment options they found appealing. They can also research on the investment or send it to their advisory to look at it. Since the app is fairly simple, which require little to no document transfer, I proposed a secured login with penalty time-out native mobile application.
Since the product had a 5-month deadline, we couldn’t cater native app as our iOS and Android developers were already tied up with other priorities. We agreed on going with shell mobile app for both Lender/Investor and Borrower, then a web page (link out from mobile app) for Borrower to upload large files and a web application for DevTown admin to manage users and manage loan and Investment applications.
PERSONAS, & FEATURE LIST
Personas were created and referred to those personas throughout the process.
I have facilitated the feature prioritisation workshop, which involved product owner and technical heads.
DESIGN
Since there was no process in place, I encouraged and educated the team to follow lean UX. Due to time constraints, I merged User flow and Wireframe into one. After completing the user flow, with the help from the development team and product owner, we split the stories into small chunks which can be achieved in a week.
WIREFRAME (LENDER/INVESTOR)
USER INTERFACE
While creating the wireframe for primary user flow, I constantly validated my solution by conducting guerilla testing. I iterated the findings from guerilla testing into our solution
PROTOTYPE (BORROWER)
BORROWER APP
LENDER APP
Admin APP
After multiple meetings and pressure from our directors, I agreed with the decision on going with bootstrap with a material design template. One of our Brand designers created logo and style guide, with that I converted the web layout to mobile UI for primary mobile screens for Borrower and Lender. I drafted the Devtown Admin user journey and wireframe, and one of my team members created UI for the Admin journey.
IMPLEMENTATION
We started delivering story after story, which I tested with our user group and implemented the feedback. In the end, we have achieved our goal as a team by meeting the deadline and developing a product that is useful for the end user while balancing the business needs and staying in the budget.
Let's make Life Easier
