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ABOUT THE CLIENT
The client was an industrial leader in steel production in Guatemala. They came to Mach49 in hopes of creating a new venture that would improve the social and economic conditions of their country.
As the supporting CX Researcher, I helped the CX lead oversee research strategy and collaborated with the New Venture Team to conduct 83 pain point, storyboard, and prototype interviews with stakeholders across the Ground Transportation industry. As the sole Designer on the team, I led the design of 3 rounds of prototype testing, along with the final Check-In and Pitch Deck.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
❖ Designed Check-In and Final Pitch Deck, resulting in a successful "Go" Decision and securing $310k in funding.
❖ Strategized outreach efforts, leading to 83 total interviews with key stakeholders.
❖ Coached client team on research and design best practices and Lean Design methodology
❖ Acted as the sole Spanish speaker from Mach49, facilitating communication between teams.
❖ Cut discovery phase in half by using AI-generated stimuli interviews which later served as a company-wide example project.
PROBLEM
The ground transportation industry faces a severe shortage of truck drivers in countries like Guatemala and surrounding developing Central American countries. This shortage is due to a variety of challenges but is particularly caused by poor infrastructure leading to unsafe road conditions and rising crime rates that make the job dangerous. As a result, driving becomes an unattractive job, affecting not only the drivers but also other stakeholders in the ecosystem like shippers, vendors/clients, and customers.
To address these challenges, our team set out to understand the most pressing pains within this space and identify an innovative solution that would best meet the needs of key stakeholders.
THE PROCESS
DISCOVERY
Our initial discover phase consisted of conducting Exploratory Research and Synthetic AI interviews.
EXPLORATORY RESEARCH (2 WEEKS)
Both CX Designer/Researchers on the team conducted Exploratory Research prior to meeting with the client to throughly understand the problem space and the industry. We conducted desk research on stakeholders in the truck industry, as well as geographic, political, social, and economic trends in Central America, Additionally, we researched potential direct and indirect competitors in Central America and internationally.
AI INTERVIEWS (1 WEEK)
Using Shift AI Personas, a product created by Mach49, we used our knowledge from our exploratory research and from previous client knowledge, to create personas for Guatemalan truck drivers, shippers, and vendors. These personas allowed us to understand each personas challenges and needs, providing context on the severity of their pains and current solutions they may be using.
Although we had access to this tool, it was understood we still needed to validate this research with real human interviews.
IMPACT
Due to our extensive discovery process, we were able to cut our typical discovery phase in half. Typically, we would spend 2 weeks on open ended interviews to understand the different pains. However, through our discovery research, we were able to cut this time in half and jump into our next phase.
DEFINE
Based on our Discovery work, we decided to focus on two stakeholders first: truck drivers and ground transportation vendors. We prioritized them first because we felt their pains were strongest, with few existing solutions.
We created hypotheses for each stakeholder to use for our next stage of testing: Open-ended and Pain Point Prioritization testing.
OPEN-ENDED AND PAIN POINT PRIORITIZATION (3 WEEKS)
We conducted a combination of a pain point prioritization exercise with open-ended questions to validate our findings from our AI discovery phase and determine which pains were most pressing.
During this phase, we faced some limitations like limited technology and varying levels of education among truck drivers. Although we usually use Zoom for interviews, we adapted our approach by using Whatsapp (the common communication tool in Guatemala) and simplified the pain point prioritization exercise. Instead of assigning a monetary value to each pain point, we asked participants to rate them as small, medium, or large.
This combined form of testing allowed us to confirm our insights from the AI interviews and saved us two weeks of open-ended research. This was the first time our company used the Shift tool, which later served as a model for improving efficiency and was shared in company-wide meetings!
SYNTHESIS
We conducted weekly synthesis sessions to discuss our findings, validate/invalidate our hypotheses, and prioritize our biggest concerns to address for the next round of testing. We clustered notes into themes and focused on the pains that were labeled as "large" pains by participants. We used this to guide us into our next round of testing.
DEVELOP - IDEATION
After several rounds of our combined testing approach and a clear picture of the largest pains of our stakeholders, we were able to transition to the value proposition phase. We brainstormed value prop ideas with our client team to come up with numerous solution ideas that would solve our pains. Our focus during this phase was ideation and simplicity, not feasibility.
CONCEPT CARD TESTING (3 WEEKS)
From our ideation exercise, we voted as a team and selected the top 7 ideas. We created Concept Cards for each idea which included the Name, Description of the Concept, and the Benefit to the specific stakeholder. We used qualitative questions and Net Promoter Scores to gather feedback. At the end, participants would rate their top 3 concepts.
CONCEPT CARD SYNTHESIS
After each round of testing, we completed a synthesis. We narrowed down which concepts would continue on to the next round, be modified, or killed (stop testing it). After our first round of testing, it was clear each concept solved a huge pain for participants. All concepts received an average NPS of 8 or higher, which is typically extremely rare for first round of testing.
To enhance our testing, our project lead asked the Mach49 and client team to rate each concept based on feasibility, viability, desirability, and passion for the concept. We were also asked to rate how each concept would be able to leverage resources from the parent company, its potential for profit, and Guatemalas' cultural readiness for the idea.
This rating allowed us to decide which concepts were most desirable from the participants side while also considering business viability.
DEVELOP - PROTOTYPING
After scoring our concepts, we were able to align and narrow our ideas to 3 concepts and transition to low-fidelity landing page testing. The purpose of each landing page was to introduce clearer details into our concepts by introducing the concept, clearly describing its value proposition, explaining how it would work, and highlighting the benefits to the respective stakeholder. Since we were testing with both truck drivers and vendors, I created a landing page for each stakeholder ensuring the language and benefits were tailored to their specific needs.
My role during this phase was to work with the client team and lead CX Researcher to facilitate working sessions to come up with clear and compelling language. As the sole designer, I designed all rounds of prototypes using Figma and created a design system that allowed me to work quickly and adapt to changes as we went through interviews and ideated.
LANDING PAGE INTERVIEWS (3 WEEKS)
As we imagined, our landing page concepts excelled, receiving an average NPS score of 9 across concepts after 2 rounds of testing and ideation. We conducted another scoring session, this time inviting cross-functional collaborators outside our project to provide their insights.
HERO SECTION: This section aimed to clearly explain each Value Proposition so participants could easily understand and differentiate between the three options.
"OUR OFFERING": This section aimed to clearly describe the features of each offering and the benefits to the respective stakeholder.
"HOW IT WORKS": Since our previous Concept Card testing focused on the general concept, this stage aimed to refine the operational details. The How it Works section outlined the process customers would follow.
"CLOSING SECTION": The end of the page included final details that would be important to users, including the cost and frequently asked questions. The FAQ question was also an opportunity for us to ask participants if they had any remaining questions at the end of the interview.
DELIVER - THE PITCH
After aligning on a concept, it was the teams time to present the final business idea. Our client team presented their business idea to the project sponsors who would give a Go or No Go decision.
During this phase, I led the design of the Check-In and Pitch deck. My role included helping the team structure their narrative and simplifying complex information like user journeys, Stakeholder ecosystems, and 5 and 10 year operating plans, into clear and compelling designs. I created the initial designs in Keynote before transferring them into Google Slides.
FINAL DECISION
The client team received a Go decision, securing $310K in funding. The estimated profit from the venture is projected to be $2.4M in the first 5 years.