In Chemical industry, if one wants to buy or sell any of the goods then one has to go through a tedious process of finding a broker who can again find the right buyers or sellers and negotiate on price with them on behalf of the client. And, because of this long process, sometimes quality of the goods deteriorates before they see the light of the day.
So, to solve this problem a client asked me to design an application which will provide a platform for the clients and brokers to make this process of buying and selling goods easy and fast.
I kicked off the project with requirements gathering. Building something for an industry that I have no knowledge of was a challenge. I started interviewing stakeholders to understand the industry and how it works over-all. I also read the literature and did some market research to understand how other people are tackling this problem. Some of the insights were:
Above insights helped me to understand the user base for the app. After numerous brainstorming sessions and interviews with the client, I created an MVP list of features that could solve the main problem. Below is the task flow of the entire application.
Because client wanted me to complete the project within a month, I immediately jumped into creating concept designs. I sketched some initial ideas on paper and walk them though the client to ensure that the designs are on the right track.
Once paper mock-ups were ready, I converted them into hi-fidelity wireframes and send them over to stakeholders for further review. Once they agreed on the final design solutions, I created a color palette for the project. One by one I started applying the color scheme to each wireframe. Some of the high-fidelity wireframes are below:
Unfortunately, because of the nature of the freelance project, I could not do any proper testing but I heard from the client that they got some really good feedback on the developed application and was really happy about the traction that they got.
It is never easy to start a project from scratch, build something new and try to convince your clients that this is the right thing to do to achieve all the objectives. Fortunately, in this project, I got good clients, who helped me a lot all through the design phase. And, that is why I was able to create a clean and elegant android application which could fulfill both business and user goals.
