Smartifying entry phones out of box
Overview
Problem: In emerging economies like India and Africa, affordable technology was enabling a huge population to migrate from basic feature phones or no phone in the past to smartphones. The customers exhibited lot of unmet needs and unique characteristics which were not addressed by device makers, resulting into smartphones being underutilized.
Goal: Define, develop and validate mobile device USPs for the 'Entry/mass Smartphone' for emerging market. Introduce Smartphone to Feature migrants via familiar entry points.
Challenges: Influencing global design stakeholders with local direction, Influencing product planners and marketers for new prebuilt Apps.
Team
- UX Lead (Myself)
- 7 UX Designers
- 5 Visual Designers
- 1 UX researcher
- 1 SDM, 20 Developers
My contribution
- Led project planning (Stakeholder workshops, Multi-country research)
- Formulating design strategy and directions
- End to End Design reviews
- Pitching to executives and product planners
Year
2013
Methodology
Process
Understanding emerging markets
Concept Boards
50+ concepts were defined keeping in mind the lifestyles and phone usage data for 3 BRICA countries. Concepts were tested on 'Ease of use' and 'Benefit'
- How might we assists user for easy onboarding to smartphone?
- How might we allow user to manage his personal and business communications without app switching ?
- How might we enable not only stress-free lifestyle but also save money?
UX Strategy
Workflows+ UI
Building marketable value propositions
This included concept branding, positioning and communication. The same concept would work in different market for different reasons.
Outcome
Design > Time to market: 20 weeks.
Right from the strategic direction settting, conceptualisation, design to prototyping and validation, the project was completed in 16 weeks. As a result , 3 features (S-Connect, Type it, Surfing meter) commecialised in SWA regions mobile phones in 2013 as strategic preloads.
