Bold Super App

Financial inclusion for small entrepreneurs in Colombia

THE CHALLENGE

Financial Inclusion for SMBs in Colombia

In Colombia, small informal entrepreneurs face several barriers that prevent them from accessing financial services. A solution that offers a multiple services requires advance information arquitecture, intuitive navigation and reduced pain from transitioning to the new app version.

Why a SuperApp?

A super app consolidates more than one core product and offers an ecosystem of features. This app will become the one-stop financial services shop for emerging entrepreneurs.

The Process

In this iterative process, UX research, stakeholder alignment and technical validation were constant activities that informed design decisions. One of the main advantages of this 8-month redesign project was the strong customer-centricity in the company, making the design team lead the app proposal based on research and integrating the other teams after executing product discovery. 

Strategic Design Research

We conducted a series of workshops within the team to gather each designer's knowledge about the different features they were developing and find common ground in the new superapp.  

Part of the extensive validation of insights was to perform quantitative triangulation where data was a crucial part of need-finding, during the whole process we incorporated methods such as A/B testing and surveys.

Along with the internal conversations, we validated how other companies worldwide integrated multiple services within one single app, recognizing best practices and particular decisions for each context.

In-context Research 

An essential part of the research process entailed understanding the demands of the context where merchants use the application to complete sales, issue refunds, validate payments and start managing their finances in the new app. We went out of the office and enquired about their particular in-context needs, finding they had to juggle their attention between closing the sale, convincing the client and delivering the product, sometimes to more than one customer.

KEY FINDINGS

Design Principles that Guided the Process

PRINCIPLE 1

Create a flexible experience tailored for the kind of merchant using it:

With extensive merchant profiles, with different needs and conditions, it was important to create a flexible app. We decided implement a modular solution with blocks that are shown based on permissions.

PRINCIPLE 2

Bring the most important features on top and make them accessible and intuitive: 

As we learned from interviews and field research, merchants using the app ussually have to deal with multitasking and impatient clients, we had to be mindful of keeping features easily accesible while augmenting the amount of options and menus. 

PRINCIPLE 3

Be aware of the information disclosed based on the user's permissions

In medium to larger business, not only the owner manipulates the app but also other employees have access to sales information, controlling data based on user roles became a perrequisite for further developments. 

PRINCIPLE 4

As teams and features grow, keep consistency and coherence:

As 12 designers were working on the same app and more that 50 people between software developers, product managers and other stakeholders involved in the customer journeys, the implementation of a robust Design System became a necessity. 

From Wireframe

To Mockup

Strategic Achievements

Led the co-design project of an app that serves over 300.000 entrepreneurs in Colombia, in collaboration with 12 designers and over 50 direct business and technical stakeholders

Co-created a solutions with complex financial requirements, multiple viewpoints, diverse scenarios and achieved a dynamic of team work that effectively delivered results over time.

Learned from the barriers that Colombian entrepreneurs face in a context that prioritizes cash management. We leveraged creative solutions to help them transition to the digital payment world.

KEY TAKEWAYS

From Co-Creation to Continuity: The Lasting Impact of Collaborative Design

From the incorporation of a new Design System, migrating to collaborative tools such as Figma, to conversations around the creation of micro interactions aligned with the overall user flow, this new super app needed to reflect the sychronicity within the design team. 

Credits (2022-2023)

Dana Duarte | Design Lead / Product Manager

Angie Duque | UX Designer

Ana Parra | Product Manager

Sergio Vergara | CMO

Laura Londoño | UI Design Lead

8+ Designers | Contributed in different teams