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BIZLOG - WEBSITE DESIGNMaria Merchant

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The premise of the project was to design a launch-website that introduces a software

product in the market. There were two main

requirements from the client: the website should look professional and exciting.

After a brief background study, the design brief was put together and

finalized.

STAGE 1

BIZLOGBIZLOG Product Background

Post 2012 there has been a paradigm shift, Softwares have moved from being products to Services.

And now post 2014 it is now the generation of connected cloud applications. This is achieved via integrations.

With BizLog, Actonate, a start-up firm plans to build an entire ecosystem of add-ons which can offer integrations. The important part here is to develop an entire ecosystem around the retail business.

The possibilities of add-ons,integrations are endless for the retail industry and no one is doing this right.

Bizlog wants to offer all this at $15 per month/store, how does that sound for a young store-owner or any small business running in various cities across the country and facing a night-mare managing them all.

Thereby their product website, BIZLOG.COM, should be able to reflect all the attributes and showcase the features.

The website needs to be a class apart with a tone that is professional yet friendly, easy to follow and not too sales-pitch-y.

The user should find the data concise and lucid and most importantly, believe in the tool’s assistance.

BIZLOGBIZLOG Design Brief

Objectives:

Designing a website for a SAAS (Software As A Service)-product, called BIZLOG that launches on a global platform and includes online checkout and on-boarding process. The site should launch and promote the software as a professional and promising product.

More about the Product:

BIZLOG is an inventive tool for Retail Industries and Restaurant businesses.

The software is targeted for one or more retail shop-owners and restaurant –owners and managers. It provides a real-time billing, revenue, analysis, inven-tory updates and many more custom add-ons.

Target market:

The target market includes the owners and managers of Small and Medium Scale Retail Industry as well as of Restaurants and Hotels.

Needs of the User:

The user should be able to access to all necessary information and facts about the product. The user should also be able to purchase, subscribe and effectively download the software.

Need for User Centric Design:

The product is projected to be highly usable for small-scale business owners and managers. The unreleased product needs to be launched in the spirit of the developing company’s belief system.

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The next step in the process was research and then focus on Who are we designing for ? User personas are believable examples of user types (personas) and tell

plausible user stories (scenarios) that explain how your users might use your product, system, or interface.

Building a persona included mapping hypothetical user’s demographics, background, education,

experiences, and overall goals in life. A fairly specific persona helps guide the design.

Based on this persona, scenarios were developed where each user’s need would be supported by the

design. Implementing the user personas helped keep our focus on the user, and not the system.

STAGE 2

BIZLOGBIZLOG UX Personas

1 Harpreet Singhthe Rocket Sales Guy

Attributes:

- 23 years- Fresh graduate from College finishing a Bachelors in Commerce

Goals:

- Make his young business enterprise of desktop computer assembly and service in Mumbai, a ‘successful’ one.

- Wants to have increased sales in the coming year to compete against the big corporates in the city.

- Wants to have enough family time with his grandparents.

Concerns:

- He has hired ex-colleagues from a bigger corporate agency which was a corrupt place in many ways. He wants to maintain transparency.

- In this start-up he wants to do stuff the right way. He would like to eschew of ‘normal’ business practices such as kick-backs, false advertisement, and low wages

Quotes:

- “Business is not a number, business is people ... only people”

- “When blood and sweat are printed together on a paper ... when the table becomes the bed and the office becomes the home ... when hunger forgets the thirst ... then a company is made.”

BIZLOGBIZLOG UX Personas

2 Malika Bedithe famous Restaurateur

Attributes: - 40 years of age- Successful Restaurateur- High social life- Loves Bangalore but is always traveling abroad.

Goals:- She wants to continue focusing on her restaurant in prime area, MG Road, Bangalore but is excited to open 2 more chains in the city as the city has expanded hugely since the past 10 ten years.- Wants to keep track of her sales, any glitches in staff attendance, on the move, even while getting her hair done.

Concerns:- She has been mulling over the idea to new outlets but she doesn’t want to lose her high maintenance touch, which is her forte.- New outlets mean bigger staff to man-age, and also bigger inventory, she wants to make sure she is not running behind time in maintaining stock.

Quotes:- “My whole life is my kids, my restaurant and my friends, in that order”

- “I am at work, even while I’m on a vaca-tion.”

- “ I want my guests to experience exqui-site cuisines as if they were taken to the origin of the cuisine while eating. Hear-ing even the smallest compliment on my restaurant’s review page really makes my day”

BIZLOGBIZLOG UX Personas

3 Himesh Patelthe typical Businessman

Attributes: - 31 years old- Past-life: Successful banker working in the US after an MBA Program.- Recently returned home to run his family’s gifts and novelties business in Ahmadabad, India.

Goals:

- Expand his father’s wholesale busi-ness of selling imported toys and novelties, successfully into a retail one.

- Wants to have increased sales by selling his shop products online as well as in different franchises based in 4 major cities in India.

Concerns:- There is higher risk than ever since his father and his grandfather have worked their entire lives on building their brand name and trust of customers.

- Wants to apply his management skills and knowledge and bring innovative ideas on the table

Quotes:- “ I couldn’t continue working in the cor-porate empire when I have a huge oppor-tunity here in my homeland”

- “Even Spider-man has to take risk ... I am only a businessman”

- “ My father and I are very open to using the best of technological tools out there that helps us save time and do more”

BIZLOGBIZLOG UX Personas

4 Priya Sharmathe Cake Baker

Attributes: - 32 years old- Loves street food- Priya runs a successful chain of Cake Bakeries in 6 cities in northern India.- Lives in South Delhi with her hus-band and two young kids.

Goals:- Wants to convert her business into an e-commerce one as well and keep only most high-sales locations running.

- She wants to expand her business yet have enough private give time to her school-going children.

Concerns:- She has build a really good task-force around her but a lot of it is based on constant book-keeping.

-She misses getting self-time to bake some pies on her own at home for her kids.

Quotes:

- “ Attention to detail has always re-mained my motto behind delivering the best made cakes in India”

-” It wasn’t easy starting this business. But its type to expand and make management more effective”

- “My Husband and I play equal roles in our kids’ lives. I want to maintain that.”

BIZLOGBIZLOG UX Personas

5 - Virat Kohlithe immaculate Manager

Attributes: - 40 years old- Has been quite experience of managing media libraries and music stores.- Recently promoted chief Manager of a successful bookstore chain in Mumbai.

Goals:- Wants his bookstore to be the most efficient and highly rated by custom-ers.- Wants to have increased sales by selling his shop products online as well as in different franchises based in 15 major cities in India.

Concerns:- There is lesser sales foot-ins ever since the dot-com boom. He wants his store to go have a simultaneous online presence.

- Wants to convince his boss, the bookstore owner of using suitable soft-ware for a few months and show in-creased sales.

Quotes:

- “ I am a stickler for good management and efficiency”

- “Not ashamed to say I live to compete”

- “ I don’t believe in using outdated tools ”

BIZLOGBIZLOG Persona Scenarios

Persona 1 - Harpreet Singh is a start-up owner and cannot afford more employees. Hence a software like Bizlog can help him and his team be on the same -page.

Persona 2- Malika Bedi is scared to open a new restaurant because she does not have a tool that can keep her in check of the daily inventory statuses of one more restaurant in the big city. Bizlog’s store setup would start giving her real-time status at her fingertips.

Persona 3 - Himesh Patel is looking out for Apps and softwares that are available to him in India. His friends back in US suggested him QuickBooks but it doesn’t suffice his needs. Bizlog offers him accounting as well as managing tool.

Persona 4 - Priya Sharma is on the verge of a breakdown. She is always confused to choose between her bakeries and her family. She would love to hire a manager and still be in touch with the day to day dealings at her stores. Bizlog helps multiple users manage the same store

Persona 5 - Virat Kohli wants to use the latest tools to beat his competitors. There’s no other product in the Indian subcontinent that offers the features that Bizlog does.

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Once the personas were finalized, the names of the User Personas were used instead of the generic term ‘user’. The focus shifted to individual personalities

while designing.

This further helped in the imagination of a storyboard for the most popular persona of the project. The

storyboard was influenced by the particular persona’s goals and concerns.

STAGE 3

BIZLOGBIZLOG Storyboard - Harpreet Singh

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Once the first hand experience was mapped with the help of the imaginative storyboard, it was important to

translate the experience into charting the basic functions that the product is capable of, in this case the

launch-website.

Hence keeping the functions in mind, an initial wireframe was prototyped. Here prioritizing the

introduction as well as advertising the free-trial was an important criterion and challenging one too. A basic

skeleton of components were laid out and its known as the wireframe. In fact several wirefarmes were

constructed to suit the requirements.

STAGE 4

BIZLOGBIZLOG First layouts

IconsIconsIconsIconsIcons

Footer

Services Slider

Secondary Information

Graphics Area/ Product Images

Primary Info and Graphics Text Area

Navigation MenuLOGO/Name

Header

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Once the basic skeleton-layouts were edited as per expert- feedback, the final design of the homepage and

rest of the pages were constructed using two Adobe tools : Photoshop and Indesign.

Product Content was placed and a total of four pages of the website were developed first for the Mobile

resolution and then for the desktop version.

STAGE 5

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Mobile Design:1. Homepage2. Features Page3. Pricing Page4. Support Page

BIZLOGBIZLOG Desktop Design:

1. Homepage 2. Features Page 3. Pricing Page 4. Support Page

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The desktop versions of the designs were further en-hanced by adding click-able interactivity to navigate between the four pages. This was the last stage of the

design.

Hence a mock-up prototype was developed in Axure, a software tool.

STAGE 6

BIZLOGBIZLOG Final Deliverable

To check out the final prototyple, please visit the link:http://1jb6bu.axshare.com/

password: merchant

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-Maria Merchant

CONCLUSION

Over all the project was an enriching first-hand experience. It was initially daunting to make a website that reflects the purpose, tone

and character of an unknown, yet-to-be-launched software product.A lot was gained from the methodology that was followed step by

step to achieve the wholistic design.

It was effective to first focus on the layout and functionality before diving into design-details that can be quite tempting. Feedback on the wireframes really helps lock the workability aspect first. It was a wonderful experience to create a simple interactive website that

hopefully helps visitors feel excited to try out the product.