✦ Other Works
✻ Overview
Role : Senior Product Designer
Team Collaborator : Product Managers, Engineers, Policy & Regulation team, External parties (financial service provider - bank)
Contribution : Crafting user journey, concepting (low-fidelity), designing (high fidelity screens), leading & facilitating workshops, conducting usability tests, synthesizing, building report
Company : GovTech Edu
Duration : 5 months
Why the team did this?
Based on the regulation, schools in Indonesia are entitled to receive government-aided funds to improve their learning quality. However, the reality in the field is that the disbursement rarely occurs on time due to interdependencies with other parties. Our preliminary research indicated that school staff also have to go to the nearest bank to make payments because they are not allowed to carry bank cards, and some remote areas may not have sufficient ATM coverage. This lack of resources has made it difficult for schools to cater to their essential needs and has obstructed their learning activities.
How was the design approach in the nutshell?
From the preliminary research, the research team identified the needs and pain points. My contribution as a Product Designer is to transform research insights into a breakdown of requirements and shape the product concept. My main role is to work on details such as defining the main flows, establishing the user journey, and crafting the rough concept into high-fidelity.
Who I collaborated with throughout the process?
I collaborated with various cross-functional teams: product managers, policy & regulation team, engineers, and external parties (financial service providers).
What the team wanted to achieve?
Enable schools to easily make secure payments from anywhere, without dependency on the disbursement process, to purchase school supplies immediately.
What’s our final solution for this?
What was my main contribution during the design process?
I was responsible for developing the user journey, and for me, it is essential to understand the goal for each phase of the journey first. Knowing the purpose will aid me in defining the product flow, while identifying the problem will help me develop specific requirements for each journey. During this activity, I structured the flow using Miro because it allowed me to easily create diagrams and enabled my non-designer team to collaborate and leave comments.
Referring to the example above, I identified that users need to receive a notification in order to avoid late payments. Thus, when I designed the information architecture, there should be an entry point for users to access the notification on the screen and take action from there.
I began by visualizing the ideas through low-fidelity designs to help us focus on the main features. Later, I developed these into Figma screens where I could invest more effort into the pixels and details. Crafting the design alone wouldn't help my stakeholders understand the logic flow, so I created a systemic map to outline the product experience flow.
I used different colors to highlight different types of actions. This helps my stakeholders filter the information and reduces their cognitive load. When designing a complex product, I make sure to provide context, making it easier for others to assess and provide feedback.
I handled the recruitment and led the testing process using Google Meet. Conducting online interviews with schools was challenging because I was dealing with users who are not tech-savvy. I needed to prepare a guide beforehand or allocate more time at the beginning in case I needed to assist with technical issues.
What’s challenging in the process?
When it comes to gathering context, the ecosystem in a government organization is more complicated due to its nature as an interdependent entity. Dealing with a vast amount of information can be overwhelming because it's hard to determine which information is pivotal.
Instead of learning from a pile of documents, I ask my peers to invite me to every related meeting as a silent observer. Here, I can take notes on what's constantly being discussed and formulate follow-up questions that I'd like to clarify afterward. The key here is to acknowledge what you need to know and who to ask.
Okay, so then how did the solution goes?
This project was discontinued during the development process due to a regulatory issue. The finance ministry didn't allow us to apply the loan system to the school because it didn't align with their regulations, preventing us from proceeding further. As a result, we decided to pivot to another project ( see my other portfolio case ).
But.. is there any small wins?
Yes! I successfully delivered the testing results to our Ministry, Mr. Nadiem Makarim (the ex-CEO of Gojek), and received a round of appreciation from him and my head of design for delivering thorough results. This project earned me the trust of my manager, leading to promotion and appointment as the project lead for the next project.
What I learned from the whole processes?
Government is a complex ecosystem consisting of various ministries that hold their policies and regulations. When designing a product, there will always be an overlap with other ministries, so it's essential to identify the whole ecosystem and make proper alignment first.
I never had a proper onboarding process when I joined this project to learn more about the context. I was directly invited to each meeting and had to jump into the conversation with multiple stakeholders, even the external ones (yes, we had a collaboration with banks and e-commerce). As someone who had zero experience with payment, putting myself in the scene helped me to fill in the gap between each context which accelerated my understanding. Just remember that it's okay to take baby steps and ask questions in between.
Your output is derived from the chain reaction you created within the process. We have proven that design can be a practical tool to provoke ideas and influence regulation push.
✦ Team Credits
Honourable mention to my design manager, Lody Andrian, for his guidance and trust throughout the process. Also shotout to our head of design, Kautsar Anggakara, for his support and appreciation which gave me confidence to run things independently. Not to forget the rest of the team -- product managers, policy & regulation team, engineers who keeps pushing and collaborate really well