By leveraging new research and spring boarding from an existing code base, we created a competitive MVP product for our international restaurant merchants in record time and exceeded intial OKRs. The project allowed merchants to create, manage and edit bookings with added capabilities of managing their Groupon Deals.
ROLE | Lead Product Designer
105%
Increase in Bookings
+75%
Increase in Deal Offerings
$20 mil.
YOY Increase in Revenue
Kick-Off
Product, Engineering, and Design had in-depth discussions to understand opportunities and limitations of the current back-end that could affect the MVP. We investigated the existing tool critically to understand the current merchant experience and documented the existing tool's interaction, information architecture, and supported use cases.
ARTIFACTS–User Journey | Task/Data Inventory | Competitive Analysis| IA Mapping
Know the Users
Groupon User Researchers conducted foundational research and a limited usability study with the existing tool on 12 London area merchants. My team and I interviewed Groupon Merchant Representatives in the UK to gain insights into current merchants' onboarding practices and support needs. We also reviewed three years of support data to further validate merchant pain points.
ARTIFACTS–User Journey | Task/Data Inventory | Competitive Analysis| IA Mapping
12 MERCHANTS
9 MERCHANT REPS
3yrs SUPPORT DATA
Insights
We refined our kick-off work and our research/usability studies. We found affinities in use cases and pain points, then grouped them into broader categories. This clarified the essential use cases for merchants using the booking tool and set the framework for our MVP design goals.
ARTIFACTS–Affinity Analysis, Ethnographic Reserach
Not an Everyday Tool
Groupon is often a source for information but not a daily tool for Merchants.
First Things First
The booking tool's many features had no hierarchy of needs and the most important uses were not easily found.
Functional not Useable
The interface was clumsy and confusing with lack of clear flow and content for important tasks.
Only What I Need
Merchants are very busy and have little spare time. Important features were obfuscated by onboarding features that had little use in their daily activities.
Confusing Content
Content did not adhere to industry standards and often deviated within the existing tool.
It's Hard to Get Paid
The path for redeeming and receiving payment was confusing due to terminology and flows that were inconsistent.
Key Elements
Our MVP design goals focused on four key elements, which were identified through our research and were critical to a merchant's business success and key to a successful Groupon experience.
Manage Bookings
Merchants need to add, edit and delete bookings within the booking tool.
Adjust Capacity
Managing the number of Groupon Deals offered is critical to maximizing the benefits of Groupon for a merchant.
Auto Redemption
Groupon is often a source for information but not a Merchant's daily tool.
Latest Activity
Merchants need to quickly understand changes in current bookings or new bookings to reconcile with their daily booking tools.
Information Architecture
We were able to simplify the IA by focusing on the key design elements identified from our research. A discussion of scheduled future features ensured these future releases would be able to be integrated into the new architecture.
User Journey & Flows
Using our discovery work, we iterated on the user journey maps and flows for the primary use cases. Once we established these we began to iterate on visual design solutions.
Explorations
We explored possible options for week/day formatting, as well as interactions that information could be displayed through progressive reveals to reduce cognitive load. The project aimed at a mobile friendly solution and aligned our solution to easily support both with patterns that were similar.
Final Designs
Landing Page
Allowed merchants to review the value proposition and integrations with existing booking tools. Merchants could then set up their account to allow booking.
Schedule
Schedule view allowed merchants to review their bookings, contact customers, edit and print booking details and adjust the available number of bookings offered for a given day.
Capacity
Capacity view allowed a weekly view of the available Groupon bookings allowed for each day. Merchant could see the allotted bookings purchased, add booking capacity or pause bookings for Groupons on specific days.
Latest Activity
Latest activity showed bookings that had recently been made. Merchants could review and accept bookings as needed.
Redemption History
Redemption history allowed merchants to review which Groupons had been redeemed and which ones were pending.
Follow-On Projects
Over the next 18-months, features were added to support new merchant business types and enhance the overall experience and usability.
