Blockchain startup Devery required a built product to present to the UN World Food Programme for a food delivery and tracking app
Under unusual circumstances, there was only 1 week to design this product.
My role was to design desktop and mobile apps to facilitate and track the delivery of food packages in Tunisia. These packages travelled from foodbanks to supermarkets to schools, making 3 types of users across the platform to consider.
Frankly, I threw out a lot of process and planning and focused on the core fundamental value that can be achieved. Take a look below to see how tackling the project as leanly as I could made my minimalism taste shine through.
A clear architecture that simplified and validated the delivery process
The experience at the time was paper-based, with clerical errors frequently present - so there's our problem. So the objective was to improve the accuracy and validity of the flow by making it faster and simpler to action on errors.
We achieved this in 2 ways.
The first was making a design system to help drive all areas of the app to look and feel identical. So then, when any type of user (delivery driver, supermarket manager) is look at information, their respondent is seeing it in the same structure. There we have an easier way to communicate and describe what they're referring to if there are issues.
The second was adding a code verification flow between drivers and those responsible at pickup and drop-off locations. An ongoing issue was the reliability of drivers actually fulfilling the deliveries. To solve this, the code would be shown to the delivery driver on their app, where they would need to share this with the supermarket or school for them to enter into their app.
The liability of the driver has increased, and will therefore direct them towards being more reliable with their actions.
Desktop Application: WFP employee reviewing the details of an order before submitting
Supermarket employee viewing their stock levels
WFP employee viewing the details of a fulfilment order that has been completed
Delivery driver fulfilling pick up and delivery with verification codes at each stop
RESULTS
The project launched in April 2018, with an initial roll out to feed 1500 primary school kids
The programme aims to feed 400,000. underprivileged Tunisian school children in 6,000 schools
LEARNINGS
It was an interesting challenge having only 1 week to design the product. It gave me a chance to think of how to make something that's just enough to fulfil its core purpose, with no room for fluff.
Momentum was built by frequent bursts of feedback with the team at Devery and the developers at Five2One that were building the product. Their involvement helped me ask all the questions on what can stay or go and also what the easiest concept is to be built, as engineers also had a thin timeline.
