context/problem
After talking to local restaurant owners in Savannah, we discovered that opening a restaurant is stressful, which often is overshadowed complex and constantly changing regulations and standards.
We created Clutch, aiming to minimize stress and streamline the process for restaurant owners. Our project aims to support the local restaurants and building vibrant and sustainable dining for the community.
role
This was my first time taking on a role as a Project Manager. In this project, I worked on developing the UX and business strategy while leading the design system.
role
Project Manager
Design System, and Strategy Lead
TEAM
Ghalib Othman, Jonathan Caleb Rodriguez
Chi Quach, Fozzie Kretshmer
TIMELINE
UXDG370 - 10 weeks
TOOLS
Figma (Wireframing, Prototyping, Branding)
Figjam (Brainstorm, User flow, Affinitization)
Outlook calendar (Project Management)
Google Doc (Documentation, notes)
product
Introducing CLUTCH.
An end-to-end guidance.
Progress tracking
Clutch curates tasks tailored to your business and local requirements in the order they need to be completed
Guided walkthrough
Clutch guides you step-by-step to seamlessly fill out every regulation, form, and submission.
AI assistant
Our chatbot is just one click away, ready to help you get the answers you need.
Simplified form filling
Clutch makes filling out forms easier with bite-sized questions.
project planning
So much to do within 10 weeks.
As a Project Manager, I was aware of our tight timeline, so having a strategic plan was important. After discussing each team member's strengths and desires, we mapped out a timeline with submission deadlines and divided roles.
user research
Focus on millenians restaurant owners.
From our secondary research, we saw a rise in millennial restaurant owners. However, compared to Baby Boomers and Gen X, Millennials faced more challenges setting up their own restaurants due to limited experience and financial resources. I created personas and storyboard for the team to understand more about users' pain points, motivations, and needs.
user needs
Efficiency first - Manage workloads and minimize the administrative burden.
Support - Help navigate the regulatory landscape with competence and control.
Awareness - Stay up to date and complied with the regulatory laws and regulations.
research
7 users, 120+ raw datas.
22 themes, and 5 insights.
Once we had a clear understanding of our target users and their needs, we started to evaluate the impact and effort of every research methods to select ones that could give us the most meaningful data in the shortest time.
research methods
Landscape analysis - We looked into online forums, business journals, and market studies to gather datas about the market size, growth, trends, and key players
Market research - We wanted to understand the target market, user, and the competitive landscape to develop our marketing strategies and features.
Competitive analysis - We analyzed many business management and restaurant-tailored softwares and legal services to identify underserved segment and determine how we could stand out.
User interviews - We gained insights into restaurant owners’ motivations, challenges, and preferences
Restaurant owners need to be able accurately gauge the costs of compliance to avoid unnecessary financial and operational setbacks.
Restaurant owners need a streamlined and guided regulation and application process to help them ensure they are in compliance.
Owners need assurance in their ability to navigate the process of opening a restaurant, regardless of their business and or entrepreneurial experience.
Considering the wide variety of legal variables, restaurant owners need to be able to easily access the information they need to be in compliance.
Restaurant owners rely on external support systems such as their community and contractors to help reduce the stress of navigating compliance and regulations.
aha moment
We kept using the 5 Why's until we found the core problem.
Our research took longer than planned since we had some difficulty in scheduling interviews with busy restaurant owners around Savannah. However, we were committed to conducting as many interviews as possible to collect all the data that we needed, ensuring our solutions were well-informed and truly resonant with their needs.
competitive analysis
Discover our 'blue ocean.'
Pricing - I analyzed pricing strategies and plans in business management and restaurant-tailored software, and researched millennial incomes, especially among small business and restaurant owners, to estimate their software spending capacity. I further validated through testing as well.
Features - I looked into features from our biggest competitor, LegalZoom to how we can differentiate.
Usability and experiences - Online forums and review sites were effective in gathering insights about product experiences and usability, without needing to purchase plans.
Market position and branding - Jon and I spent a lot of time together to research how other brands develop strategies and communicate their messages. This helped us create an unique approach tailored to millennial restaurant owners.
insights
$19.99/month subscription might not be the move.
Considering our unique value proposition and blue-ocean market segment, we decide to increase our pricing to reflect the value and benefits offered to our underserved audience.
We need to carefully consider our cost structure for building and marketing the product, ensuring that our pricing not only covers these costs but also generates profit.
IDEATION
How might we streamline the process of navigating municipal compliance laws and regulations when opening a restaurant for the first time?
Use 'Jobs to be done' (JTBD) method
to guide our ideations.
Each member noted their JTBD based on their understanding of the research. We then grouped these jobs by the frequency of mention from each member and organized them in a chart, ranking them based on the importance of each job to user goals.
Crazy 8's
Each of us would have 8 minutes to brainstorm and forces ourselves to generate the most wildest feature ideas that align to each JTBD. Then we affinitized and grouped them.
Feature prioritization
We used Figjam's blind voting to vote and select ones that we wanted to prioritize. After evaluating on the feasibility of each features, we decided not to choose the social aspect.
aha moment
'Jobs to be Done' framework came in handy.
This process was a continuous loop of ideation, affinitizing, blind voting, and prioritizing until we narrowed it down to 5 key MVP features. It was my first time using the 'Jobs to be Done' framework in my ideation process (Thanks Jon for introducing!) and I loved it. It guided our solutions to be user-centric and goal-oriented.
prototyping
Create task flows to guide our design.
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Wireframe
Pivoted from desktop to mobile.
aha moment
"We would prefer a mobile version since we are always on the go." - Restaurant owner at B.
We assumed that our users would prefer a desktop app, as many legal and document editing software are commonly used on desktops. However, our test participants prefer mobile so we have to adapt our design to mobile.
design system
Integrate the branding into the design system.
Throughout this process, I worked closely with our creative director, Jon, to develop brand identity (brand voice, personality, stylescapes, visual guidelines) and strategy (value proposition, unique selling point, brand statement, slogan). I then integrated our branding into design system.
aha moment
Balance between auto-layout and manual adjustment!
My obsession with auto-layout clashed with my teammate Ghalib's preference for manual adjustment. He got so frustrated with me when he had to ungroup many auto-layout components during our rapid iterations for wireframes. Therefore, I learned to compromise. We agreed that auto-layout should be applied after finalizing the iterations, to enhance workflow efficiency.
interactive prototype
Sweat the small interactions,
bring moments of delightfulness.
Ghalib is our star for interaction design. He spent a lot of time curating every micro-interactions to bring out experiences more lively. Working with him allowed me to learn more about timing and using bouncy effects to add personality to the interaction.
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