Dreamy

SCOPE

UX/UI Design

UX Research

Project Management

INFO

Feb 2020 - Oct 2020

dreamydc.com

ROLE

Designing a service application for last-mile deliveries and managing product development on SCRUM sprints.

Overview

CONTEXT

Ryan Ha founded Dreamy on the cusp of marijuana decriminalization in Washington, D.C. and succeeded as an environmentally-friendly hyper local delivery service. At the time, many brick-and-mortar stores circumnavigated Federal law by selling cheap clothing or artwork officially and then “donating” marijuana products to paying customers. On the other hand, Dreamy avoided filling landfills by selling motivational speeches instead. Ryan Ha had built his M.V.P. as a basic Python web-based platform and secured a loyal customer base in Northwest D.C. Ready to scale his operation, Ryan approached Dupont Studios for the design and development of a more robust React Native mobile application that could support customer growth with a bigger workforce.

CHALLENGE

Dreamy began as a side hustle amongst childhood friends and reached $1M in yearly gross revenue overnight. It was a business built on trust and a unique offering of delivering products in less than 15 minutes. The customer base grew rapidly and overwhelmed the small team. Dreamy’s existing platform had only two types of users, clients and workers, which gave too many permissions and sensitive customer information to any new hires. Additionally, it had no means of managing orders based on urgency and proximity so many potential sales were lost when new orders timed out.

SOLUTION

I facillitated client workshops and brainstorming sessions and shadowed employees to understand Dreamy’s business model and major pain points. Based on my research, I designed a new order processing user flow for all employees, expanded management functionalities for team leaders, and added special superpowers for Dreamy’s ownership. I then managed a team through development phases on weekly SCRUM design and build sprints.

Overview Research
Ideation Design
Outcome

Research

INTERVIEWING, SHADOWING, BRAINSTORMING

I set aside a two-week period for research. In that time, I had multiple conversations with the CEO to understand his vision, goals, and operational painpoints. Then, I spent a day shadowing a Dreamy employee throught his deliveries and I interviewed willing customers. Finally, I facillitated multiple workshops with the entire Dreamy team in order to go over their existing technology and understand the worker’s and manager’s perspectives.

SOFTWARE AUDIT

I created a Customer account and a Worker account to test Dreamy’s existing platform. Then I created a UML map of their current functionality to understand which features should be kept and which should be improved.

RESEARCH TAKEAWAYS

After diving deep into Dreamy's operations, I synthesized the most important takeaways based on user group - Customer, CEO, and Staff.

Overview Research
Ideation Design
Outcome

Ideation

USER TYPES

I synthesized all my research findings into four user types. I kept the Customer’s user journey the same since everyone interviewed appreciated Dreamy’s simplicity and ease of use. Then I created three staff user types with overlapping functionalities. Everyone is a Worker, but Managers administer Zones and the Admin is the only one who can add or delete employees, manage the store opening hours and surge rates, and assign Managers to Zones.

WIREFRAMES

After validating the four user types with Ryan, I created wireframes to represent every order processing and managerial feature that came up in my research. I focused on the core Worker’s wireframes, then the Manager’s and finally the Admin’s. Through these wireframes, I worked with Ryan to get core and additional features approved.

UI EXPLORATION

While I was iterating UX flows, I also created several approaches to UI design based on Customer onboarding until Ryan was satisfied with the results.

FINAL FEATURE SCOPE

I mapped every feature we discussed to create a directory of user flows. Based on this UML map, Ryan decided to proceed with Dreamy's development in three phases.

Phase 1: Recreate the Customer onboarding and order processing flow. Add Workers with their core functionality in processing deliveries.

Phase 2: Add Manager's and Admin's account type with Zone managing permissions.

Phase 3: Add inventory tracking.

Overview Research
Ideation Design
Outcome

Design & Development

UI DESIGN

I iterated Customer onboarding UI designs until Ryan approved the look and feel.

CUSTOMER SCREENS

The only user to have a desktop as well as a mobile view is the Customer. I designed every Customer screen and validated the UX and UI design decisions with Ryan before moving on to designing the Worker, Manager, and Admin user flows.

WORKER SCREENS

These screens center on the order processing user flow, which remains the same for Managers and Admins. Here I utilized order sorting and a card-based feed.

MANAGER SCREENS

Managers have all the order processing functionality of Workers in addition to special Zone management functions. Each manager assigned to a Zone can create their own team and track Workers across their deliveries.

ADMIN SCREENS

The Admin has the added functionality of assigning Managers as team leaders for a given Zone. This assignment gives a Manager the label of GM, allowing them to add active workers to their roster. The Admin can also oversee team creation and add or remove Workers.

Additionally, the Admin is the only user able to turn the store On and Off, as well as trigger Surge Pricing and an Inclement Weather charge.

Overview Research
Ideation Design
Outcome

Outcome

DEVELOPMENT

I worked with a talented development team in Pakistan to bring this app to life. We operated on week-long SCRUM sprints where design was always one week ahead of development. My workflow was to design features, get them approved by Ryan, and then cue up for development. I remained with the project through Phase 1 - Dreamy's React Native-based MVP. I made sure that all Customer and Worker functionality adhered to our scope of work.

TAKEAWAYS

If I could have done things differently, I would have remained on the team as a Project Management consultant. I left Dupont Studios after Phase 1 was complete in order to pursue another opportunity.