The Idea
Do you remember the first time you visited another country and suddenly felt lost? Maybe you spoke the local language, but can you imagine if you didn’t? Don’t you wish you had a helping hand to answer your questions, doesn’t matter how simple or how complex?
Can you image now living in that country?
A lot of people are moving into Canada looking for better opportunities but they don’t have the resources needed to integrate into their communities.
Mapely is an app designed to be the helping hand to those newcomers.
Mapely is a chat-bot that quickly answers any questions related to life in Canada. Wether it be a simple question like ‘How do I pay my bills?’ to more complex ones like ‘How do I get a work permit?’ in a friendly and concise manner.
First I wanted to create a Customer Journey App to get a better evaluation of the user discovery of the app.
Customer Journey Map
Understanding the User
User Surveys
I did a survey to analyse which are the first problem a newcomer to Canada faces. Not surprisingly housing is one of the most recurrent problems among newcomers.
Also, the surveys helped me create a better understanding of the persona the app is intended for.
Survey Key Findings
◉ Use a youthful and friendly tone while talking to the user.
◉ In my survey, I found that newcomers to Canada are mostly students that find difficulty trying to find housing. I base my user flow based on that to create a strong relationship with the user.
Personas
User Conversation Flow
Wireframes & Prototyping
Once the conversation flow had been established, I moved to sketch some wireframes for the chatbot.
Paper Sketches
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Update: Between these phases, I did a usability test for this user flow and I found that users were a bit confused about the first interaction with the bot.
Users felt that they were already inside a conversation without even having started one.
What I did was to completely redesign the first interaction with the bot. This new ‘home screen’ sets itself apart from the actual chat making the user feel like they are the ones initiating the conversation. Conducting another test, this new design was more favourable.
High Fidelity Designs
Prototype
Using Principle I prototyped the user flow for Mapely.