Project: POS Device

Retail ‘point of sale’ digital solution

2018-19

Overview

In November 2016 the Govt. of India declared demonetisation of Indian currencies. In this, a fortune 100 company saw the opportunity to digitalise the Indian retail point of sale (POS) transactions currently run on books and at best on multiple devices like computers, barcode scanners, card scanners, printers, displays, etc.

The ingenious plan for its time (2018) was to introduce a single handheld android POS device in India that would integrate billing, printing, credit/debit card swiping, multiple payment methods, QR code scanning, customer management, supplier management, inventory management and GST management among a few more amazing features set to change the POS landscape of India.

The project was temporarily named Artha and later called India Connected Retail (ICR).

Problem statement

Indian small and medium scale retailers are struggling to convert their businesses to a digital model to cope with the new laws. They found it difficult to manage their business and adapt to complex digital environments.

Roles and responsibilities

Lead a 3 member design consultant contractor UX team for a fortune 100 client,
Gather business requirements from a 35 member stakeholder team,
Conduct user research and market study,
Craft user centric interactions and interfaces,
Test the product and iterate respectively

Scope and constraints

Native android application specific for the POS device which used a primitive built.
UI designs to follow the client's existing brand guidelines and design language system.

Research Activities

Field study
User interviews
Stakeholder interviews & workshops
Requirements & constraints gathering
Persona building
Task analysis
Journey mapping
Card sorting
Qualitative in-person usability testing

Users and Audience

Small and medium retail shop owners and staff members

User persona - Shop owner

User persona - Staff member

Research Findings

Information Architecture

Sample recreation. Original work is NDA protected

All that valuable research findings were listed as features. Then two workshops were conducted where the stakeholders and users separately sorted features and content to their preferences.

The final information architecture was crafted in respect to both the groups prioritising content hierarchy and appropriate text labelling.

User flows

Sample recreations. Original work is NDA protected

Billing user flow

Purchase user flow

Ideations

Sample recreations. Original work is NDA protected

Designs

Sample recreations. Original work is NDA protected

Outcomes

The redesigned ICR application helps to introduce and induce modern day business techniques among the small grocery shopkeepers.
The product optimised overall store management, especially with the new GST laws.
The product changed the retail business with data mining, offering solutions that facilitate business growth for all layers connected from manufacturers to the smallest retailer.
While user testing, it was found restaurant billing could be done in an amazing 4 seconds making queues non-existent.

Screenshot 2022-03-23 at 1.32_edited.jpg

Lessons

Instead of focusing on managing large number of stakeholders, guide them to discover problems and always provide tangible solutions.

In this project I learned that asking people, "shouldn't we be proud of our product" gets things moving in the right direction. When stakeholders are divided, "product success" can be the unifier.

My belief that a designer is like a doctor consulting patients was further cemented with this project. Meaning a doctor should not just blindly prescribe medicines at the patient's behest. The doctor should be empathetic and listen to identify the actual problem in order to successfully solve it.