Support Your Local:
September - October 2020
Support Your Local is a feel-good crowdfunding project with the mission of providing much needed cash flow to small businesses through the COVID-19 lockdowns in Melbourne. The project aims to reward consumers for their loyalty throughout lockdown with the ability to reap the benefits at a later stage.
How might we better help small business get through COVID-19 lockdowns?
The problem
The year 2020 brought upon a unique set of problems faced by those around the globe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Australia, and more specifically, Melbourne, many small businesses faced hardships caused by the world's longest lockdown. Small businesses owners were seemingly left strapped for cash, and in need of much needed cash flow.
The government attempted to steady the situation for small business owners through economic support. However, this is a highly inefficient way to stimulate the economy.
I needed to chat to some business owners.
Given that I am not a small business owner trying to navigate the tough climate that is the global pandemic of COVID-19, I thought it was necessary to step out onto the street and have conversations with those feeling the pinch from the latest restrictions (all interviews were conducted at a safe social distance and with masks!).
Meet Andrew & Kyle
I ventured out to local coffee shops that were serving out of the window, and tried to get a grasp on their frustrations and concerns both relating to business and their personal lives. After speaking to a number of different business owners, I created a user persona, Andrew.
I knew I wanted the wider community to play a part in stimulating the economy for local businesses, so once again I was out (and on the phone) collecting information. I used this information to create another user persona, but this time for the wider community member; the consumer, Kyle.
The research
Feature Prioritisation. User Flows.
Next I used a 2x2 Matrix for Prioritisation to determine which features should be included in the minimum viable product (MVP). I determined that the most important parts of the application would be enabling users to search and browse for their local stores as well as the capability to purchase and redeem their credits.
Feature Prioritisation
The feature prioritisation matrix allowed me to narrow my focus away from the business management (more specifically features like the business dashboard). It allow me to focus on features that would be used and sought after first by customers. These included:
Search/Browsing (including business information)
Payment
Redeeming vouchers
User Flows
I jumped into designing a user flow for an application that serves to solve this problem. To me the flow should be split into two uses. The first being the search phase. How does a user (in this case a consumer) interact digitally to achieve their goals of purchasing credit for their local stores.
The second is what I called the redeeming phase. How does a customer redeem their credits in the physical world once covid restrictions are reduced.
The design
Wire-framing. Low-fi prototyping. Hi-fi prototyping.
I started to design various wireframes by hand, and slowly progressed to a low-fidelity prototype in Adobe XD.
Wireframes
Low-Fi prototypes
Browse
Payment
Redeeming voucher
The delivery
Usability testing. Iteration. High-fidelity prototyping.
With my very basic prototypes I needed some feedback. I used Maze to set up some basic tasks for users to complete, and then asked some questions based on their experience in a quick phone chat. I reached out to a number of testers that fit the Kyle White user persona that I created. The results were certainly interesting.
My learnings from testing:
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What's my benefit?
Users wanted to see the amount of discount they would be receiving up front. This would allow users to easily compare and browse between local businesses.
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How much have I spent?
Users wanted the ability to track their past transactions, much like on bank applications.
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How much have I saved?
Users wanted the ability to check how much money they have saved in total, and how much money they had contributed to small businesses in tough times.
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Payment confirmation
There was a need for users to customise how much they wanted to spend and to better signal confirmation of payment during the checkout.
Iterations & Hi-Fi prototypes
I jumped back onto Adobe XD to focus on the key areas outlines by my testing results and started to work on some High-fidelity prototypes.
Below are the results of that work:
Browse
Statistic tracking
Payment confirmation
Favourites & Redeeming vouchers
So what’s next?
Support Your Local was very much a thought experiment in the gloom that was the 2020 lockdowns in Melbourne. I think it is always important to address current issues with creative and optimistic solutions (based on research of course!).
Fortunately, it looks like Melbourne is finally out of the shackles that were the 2020/21 COVID-19 lockdowns. Hopefully, there will be no reason to get Support Your Local on the app store any time soon however, you most certainly can continue to head down to your favourite coffee shops and barbers and tell them how much you love them!
