Juix
Ensuring nightlife folks get home safe
Juix's service allows anyone to use their app to rent portable power banks at charging stations stationed within local businesses to charge their mobile devices on the go.
During my 3-month stay as the sole UX Designer Intern at this start-up, I worked on 2 different experiences: rental and reserve. The focus will be on the reserve experience - a new feature I pioneered that addressed their current problem.
ROLE: UI & UX DESIGN, VISUAL DESIGN, BRANDING, DESIGN SYSTEMS
TIMELINE: DEC 2020 (4 WEEKS)
START-UP PROJECT: TECH
Context
Due to the pandemic, customer retention on Juix's app declined so their new plan was to target a new audience: night life goers. But without a design team, did Juix's current rental experience cater to this new targeted audience?
Moving forward, I also took a few constraints into consideration: a low budget and implementation of Intercom, a customer chat platform to improve customer service on the app.
The Problem
Reviewing the app, I discovered that there was...
No way to account for product availability while en route to pick up the portable power bank.
Was this plaguing JUIX’s success? I needed to test this hypothesis!
Research
To begin understanding the new targeted audience, night life goers, I worked with the Product Manager to measure this hypothesis quantitatively (surveys) and qualitatively (user interviews & usability testing) due to Juix's budget constraint.
Out of the 38 survey respondents and the 3 users I interviewed and tested the app with, an important insight stood out and confirmed my hypothesis:
Ease of convenience was a common need all users shared; as a result, users questioned Juix's services as they were frustrated and worried they'd waste time and energy to pick up a product that wouldn't be guaranteed to be there.
"No one wanna go there and there's nothing left. Just like at a restaurant, you have a reserved section and you gotta regular section for people that just come in at any time"
-Daniel, 24 year old night cluber
Ideation
These insights revealed a product opportunity to capitalize on (A reserve feature) and would align with Juix's mission: Redefine charging to make it accessible anytime and anywhere with a vision driven by on-demand services for any basic need.
As users were most familiar with food pickups and restaurant reservations, I decided to adopt a similar task flow for reservations. I then mapped the existing requirements for rentals to influence how I’d identify major areas of concern for reservations.
My goal was to make reserving as similar as possible to the rental task flow to decrease the technical work needed to implement it since Juix was on a low budget.
Without knowing the functional limitations of the charging station, I carried 3 assumptions and took into account, use cases to minimize friction when reserving power banks.
Design & Branding
Convering with stakeholders, I presented the 3 main reserve wireframes which then prompted that we address any technical issues as this would make or break company growth.
Based on these team insights, I used the scenario of having 1 minute of phone battery left to influence how I'd make reserving easy and simple when finalizing the initial prototype.
Next, I collaborated with the Marketer and Product Manager to update, align, and unify their design system before the final prototype.
Mirroring what users loved about the app, simplicity and minimalism, I refined the app's visual aesthetic to be more modernized and future adaptable with spacing, button states, color semantics, icons, and styles.
Shipping
Using Zeplin, I worked closely with the Engineering team to validate that reserve designs were accurately implemented while also addressing any issues along the way.
Outcomes & The Solution
I pioneered a new app feature that 100% guaranteed product availability to resolve user safety endangerment at night.
"Thanks for everything you've done over the last couple months. We really appreciate all your contributions and have enjoyed working with you."
Edward Nehamkin, Product Manager
Learnings & Takeaways
Embarking on projects as the sole designer with a cross-functional team gave me a greater sense of autonomy. I challenged the status quo and delivered impact by:
- Pioneering a new feature to solve an uncovered problem space that was detrimental to Juix's success
- Refining their working design system with new styles and patterns
- Speeding up design implementation for devs by 60% by introducing Zeplin within just 2 months
If I had more time, I'd test the reserve feature with more users, use data analytics to see the full effectiveness of its usability, and closely work with the devs to implement it since I was only able to do so with the rental redesign.
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