The founders had previously already hired an agency to do user research for them and gathered the findings of the agencies together with a possible feature map in a Miro board to kick off the collaboration. Based on those insights, we started framing the problem space.

Problem Statement:

Local small businesses often face significant challenges in managing their operations efficiently and expanding their market reach. Common issues include operational inefficiencies, limited online presence, inadequate customer engagement, and underutilization of data for decision-making. These challenges hinder business growth and competitiveness in an increasingly digital market.

Hypothesis Statement:

Revelo aims to empower local small businesses by providing an all-in-one solution designed to streamline store operations, establish an online presence, enhance customer engagement, and leverage data for informed decision-making. We hypothesize that by using Revelo, businesses will experience improved operational efficiency, increased market reach, stronger customer relationships, and overall business growth.

After gaining an understanding of the problem space and refining the features, I began creating step-by-step wireframes. I would first discuss these with the founders, then test them with people from my network. While testing, I made sure to include individuals from different backgrounds, age groups, and also tested with someone who has color blindness to include a good range of perspectives.
In dialogue with the two founders, I refined the wireframes. After multiple iterations, it was time to develop the branding.

I started with a brand kickoff workshop, where I discussed with the two founders what the brand meant to them, the feelings they wanted to evoke, and how they wanted users to connect to the brand based on their overall mission. We could have delved deeper into the conceptual aspects of branding and developing the brand strategy, as well as considering the interaction points between users and the brand. However, we concluded this part of the project by creating a visual identity, as we wanted more time to focus on the app.

We established that the brand attributes should be: modern, sophisticated, vibrant, and reliable. We wanted store owners to feel like they can trust Revelo to take their business to the next level and appeal to a wide audience with the branding. This is represented in the visuals through a clean, minimalistic design with a dark background and vibrant coral accents. We aimed for the logo, featuring a stylized "R" and the modern sans-serif font we chose, to embody boldness and dynamism, while feeling neutral and not distracting.

The next part of the project was to create a design system and high-fidelity screens, followed by a clickable prototype to be handed off to developers. We conducted another round of testing with the prototype, sending it to a broader group of people. This time, the founders also tested with people from their network and potential first users of the app.

A significant part of this phase was figuring out the monetization of the app. We created a free version and different subscription models, which users would pay a monthly fee for. With the free version, users would not be able to access features such as creating an online store and would face limits on usage across the rest of the app.

As the app is currently in development and I have signed an NDA preventing me from publicizing its contents, I have been allowed to select key features of the app to showcase for this case study:

This project presented several challenges for me. It has probably been the most complex project I have ever worked on as the sole designer, being responsible for each stage of the project. The greatest challenge was designing an intuitive user experience that caters to a diverse user base, including store owners with varying levels of tech-savviness. Some features were particularly complex, like data analytics, store management, and customer management.

I had to break these down into smaller steps and sometimes conduct broad competitive UX research into other industries to find design patterns to reference. We also ended up scrapping several features after usability testing revealed that people needed to take different actions than what we had initially anticipated.

We had specific goals we wanted to achieve, but I aimed to avoid reinventing the wheel, sticking as much as possible to interactions users might already be familiar with. The design system I built for Revelo references multiple open source design systems such as Google's Material Design, Apples Human Interface Guidelines and Ants Design System.

Handing off the app to their developers concluded our collaboration. The next stages will involve creating a web app and measuring the success of the MVP.

The two founders used the final prototype to approach their first potential users, and so far, we have received positive feedback. Multiple business owners have indicated that this would help them manage their stores and have a positive impact on their business, and it is something they would consider paying to use. As part of teaching myself Webflow, I also created an unofficial landing page for this project, which you can find here:

landing page ↗