The Final Reveal: Last Sprint of the Project!
Welcome to the very last sprint of our Capstone journey! After going on this exhilarating, enlightening and exhausting journey for the past 7 months, we are proud to present to you the fruits of our labor.
In case you have not been following our journey from the beginning, you can read all the previous articles from our publication page- numo-mhci-capstone.
Problem Statement:
PNC currently offers CLO’s (Card-linked Offers) through their banking program. However, these haven’t gain significant traction amongst merchants and consumers. We have been tasked by numo (PNC subsidiary that is part corporate innovation lab, part tech incubator) to explore the space of CLO’s and come up with a comprehensive solution that will fulfil the needs of merchants and consumers, as well as providing value to numo.
Introducing our final solution…
Named after the Roman god of merchants, commerce and messaging, Mercury provides a refreshing experience of Card-Linked Offers to consumers and merchants alike.
Mercury for Consumers
In our previous post, we shared the results of the TAP (Think-Aloud Protocol) sessions conducted with consumers along with the proposed design changes. Since then we have completely revamped the design system giving it a more modern minimalistic look. We also conducted the final round of user testing, after which we made some cosmetic changes as necessary. We are proud to show our final iteration of the consumer app for Mercury.
Deals
This is essentially the homepage of the app. Users can see deals for themselves and deals for their friends. In the “deals for you” section they can see the business, rating, who sent it, and what the deal is. They can click into the deal to learn more- for example why it was sent to them. They even have the option to remove deals that don’t interest them.
In the “deals for friends” section, users can see the business, its reviews, the deal, and how many they have left to send. Additionally when they send the deal, they get recommendations of friends who will be more likely to use it. On both pages the users have options to filter and search.
Map/List
On the map page, the user has the option to switch between the list and map views. They can also use the search bar and/or the filters to narrow down the results, based on their interests and needs. In the preview for the business the user can see the type of business (ie “asian | fusion | brunch”), the ratings, the hours, how many friends reviews, their deal, and the option to follow it.
Feed
In the feed, the user can see posts from businesses on updates, new items, promotions, or other news businesses may want to share. To see businesses in their feed, users must follow them. Also, some posts that may appear in the feed are recommended based on the users interests. The user can see more information about why that business was suggested to them.
Users can also see updates to their friends top lists and new reviews. As with other pages there are options to filter and sort the posts.
Profile
In the profile tab, the user can see how many friends they have, how many businesses they follow, and how many visits they made to businesses. They also have the ability to go in and view these lists. There are two tabs within the profile: top lists and reviews.
In the top lists tab, users can edit or create new top lists using the ‘+’ button. These lists include the top 5 businesses by type (restaurant, service, store), the category (ie salon, brunch, market), and city. The lists are initially autogenerated but the user has the ability to edit during the creation process as well as afterwards.
Users can also see the reviews they have written previously and write new ones. The new reviews are recommended based on businesses that the users visited previously. Both of these sections have filter and search capabilities.
Mercury for Merchants
In this sprint, we created our final merchant design system with our main functionalities being business performance, promotions, and messages. Afterwards, we conducted our final round of user testing and made some smaller changes as necessary. We are happy to present to you a look at our high-fidelity design for the merchant application.
Business Performance
When the business owner logs in, they are taken to the Business Performance tab. This tab has several detailed and interactive visualizations to help the business owner understand how well their business is performing. Some metrics shown are-
- Traffic: It shows how many new and returning customers shopped at their business over different time periods (day, week, months, year)
- Top Lists: From the consumer app data, it shows which other businesses are the customers putting in the same top list as their business. This can help the business owner create partnerships with other local businesses.
- Industry Comparison: Business owners get comparative information about the items purchased, customer age group and average spend.
- Items and returning customers: This section gives information about which items purchased convert new customers into returning customers.
Promotions
In the promotions tab, the business owner can create new promotional offers for customers. There are two types of promotional offers-
- Gift Deals: These are deals that customers can gift to their friends.
- General Promotions: These are deals available for use by customers on the consumer app. The business owner can filter who gets these deals.
Messages
Business owners can directly send messages to their customers who are using the consumer app. They can see how many people a message was sent to and how many views did it get. After creating a new promotion, business owners can choose to create a new message about the promotion.
Profile
In the profile page, the business owner can edit the details of their business such as description, location, contact info and open hours. They can also add images and items/services provided at their business. This information is used to display the business information on the consumer app.
Next Steps
We are almost there! Here’s a few things we have left to do before we wrap up our project-
- Make a few tweaks in the consumer and merchant app design
- Iterate on the logo of Mercury and include it as branding in our app design
- Complete final project deliverables- website, client presentation and report
- Complete coding for development of rapid working prototype of the promotions feature in the merchant and consumer app
