Platouas, translated as ‘small platter’ in Romanian, is a food ordering & delivery platform empowering small scale Romanian farmers to reach urban residents.
Platouas
Timeframe
Apr - June 2021
(3 months)
Team
1 designer, 1 PM, Code for Romania CTO
Role
UX designer
Scope
design user flow and low-fi MVP for fundraising & implementation
Tools
Figma & FigJam
Role Details
I designed the user flow & a low-fi MVP as a volunteer for Code for Romania, the country’s largest tech NGO solving societal issues with help from >2000 volunteer coders.
The NGO is currently fundraising for Platouas. You may find Platouas on the Code for Romania website, under Environment for Romania > Masurarea poluarii (Measuring pollution).
Problem
HMW help small scale farmers commercialize their products to urban consumers?
With nearly a fifth of Romania’s population employed in agriculture, its digitalization is a strategic pillar for the development of my country. Most farms are small, family exploitations that don’t have the resources and infrastructure to compete with large delivery chains. Their most efficient strategy is selling products in bulk. While urban consumers interested in buying locally are willing to pay higher prices, they cannot comfortably store large quantities and therefore prefer buying less. While our solution does not solve the systemic lack of agricultural infrastructure, it enables farmers to reach urban consumers more effectively.
Solution
Platouas (ro: small platter) is an online ordering platform that connects farmers and urban citizens, allowing customers to place group or individual orders.
When ordering in a group, each customer builds their own order, and then a designated ‘group leader’ places the total order and receives everyone’s delivery. The ‘group leader’ is then responsible to distribute the order to their group mates. This way, farmers are able to make their bulk deliveries, and consumers can buy the amount they desire by splitting orders with their friends.
Consumer
Vendor
Roadmap
where I joined
Initial Research> Personas & Empathy Maps> Ideation & Sketching > Low fidelity MVP > Fundraising > Dev
project handoff
When I joined Code for Romania, the NGO had already done initial research and concept generation. With the PM on my team, we summarized findings into personas and empathy maps to better define urban customers. We also conducted market research to identify great user flows and mistakes to avoid from other online ordering apps. Finally, I created the user flow of Platouas for customers and vendors and delivered a low fidelity MVP. The NGO is now conducting fundraising before they move to development.
Personas and Empathy Maps
The PM and I synthesized Code for Romania’s user research findings into user personas and empathy maps to understand our target users and empathize with their perspectives.
Primary focus
Secondary focus
Our target users are young, relatively high earning parents, especially mothers, living in large cities. They care about supporting their communities, leading a healthy lifestyle with their families, and are environmentally conscious. While money is not an issue, their pain points are travelling long distances and the inability to store large quantities of food in their apartments.
NEED
Young parents living in cities NEED:
to easily access trusted local food suppliers
to purchase relatively small quantities of food
to receive purchases by delivery or minimal travel
Code for Romania also identified small HoReCa businesses as potential customers, but further research is needed to determine their needs and interests.
Ideation
The PM and I came up with user stories to meet user needs and guide product design and development.
Sketches
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 1 shows the user flow from landing page, where the user may view different product categories, to a specific product of their choice, to their order, which may be placed individually or as part of a group. I explored the option of allowing users to pick among previous groups. How often might users decide to order with the same group vs. a new one?
Below the sketches, I brainstormed options for menu buttons accessible throughout the application.
Screenshot 2 shows another option of the order summary screen, with a separate button for adding groups above the CTA to place an order. We decided to go with the option displaying individual and group orders at the same level, to emphasize both options.
Screenshot 2 also shows the user journey of the group leader, including creating their own order, placing the total order, and out-of-app interactions such as collecting money and distributing products. I discuss the group leader’s experience in the pain points section below.
Screenshot 3 displays the ‘search’ and ‘create new groups’ features within the groups management page. I explored how users might go about creating a new group and adding or deleting participant.
Pain points: As previously established, vendors lack the capabilities to make many individual deliveries. According to the CTO’s assessments, the NGO doesn’t have the budget or infrastructure to handle individual purchases from each member of a group or the communication to arrange distribution, so all that falls on the person acting as ‘group leader'. This user experiences the greatest pain points because of their out-of-app responsibilities.
To compensate with good in-app experience, I convinced my team to go with an app design that has all group members submit their personal orders through the app, eliminating a potential task for the ‘group leader.’ I also created a simple user flow that allows group leaders to easily track the completion of each group member’s order and place orders once they are complete. Moreover, I designed groups so that leaders can rotate to distribute responsibility.
Prior to development, testing should be conducted to evaluate whether the benefits of the app outweigh the inconvenience posed to ‘group leaders.’ With enough funding and technical capacity, features might be added to improve the group leader’s experience.
MVP: Low fidelity wireframes
I designed mobile (Android) screens for consumers and desktop screens for vendors. All text was initially in Romanian, but I translated it to English for the purpose of this portfolio. I used this grayscale kit for colors, components, and basic icons. I edited icons in this kit to create the group and farmer icon in the app.
Consumer Interface
Landing Page > Product Search
Vendors
My Order
My Groups
Place order: single vs group
View complete vs incomplete group order (leader)
Expand order card
Vendor Interface
Manage products
Manage orders
Create & edit products offered by unit or in bulk
Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Taking initiative and reaching out
I joined Code for Romania by cold-emailing some of its leadership with sample work, asking if I could do anything to help. I arrived at a time where the NGO had plenty of coder volunteers, but few designers, and fewer still with experience in the tool leadership loved most, Figma.
Lesson 2: Clear communication, adaptability, and professionalism
Platouas was the first commercial app I worked on as sole designer and I enjoyed the responsibility and the challenge of working directly with the NGO’s CTO and a seasoned PM. Both the PM and I were working full-time (I was interning at Amazon at the time), so prioritization was an important skill to practice. I learned about the importance of clear design communication and workspace organization. Ultimately, we worked in a professional yet relaxed and fun environment, an example I may now reference for future collaborations.
Lesson 3: Accounting for financial and technical constraints
This project taught me about real-life business and technical constraints, as well as necessary tradeoffs. To ensure the technical and financial feasibility of Platouas, we had to accept some level of foreseen pain points for ‘group leaders,’ who are responsible for collecting money and arranging distribution with their group mates out-of-app, while compensating with a seamless in-app experience.
Next Steps
Fundraising for concept testing and app development. Stay tuned!