ECA Customer
The easiest way to buy and sell steel
Customer interviews
The project started with a kick-off call which included the Product Owners, Technical Leads, Project Managers, Lead UX/UI Designers and Business Managers
NDA
Client
Platform
Web+Mobile
Team
15+
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ECA.
India's online buying and selling steel platform
ECA is the go-to platform to buy, sell and monitor steel products in India. The B2B marketplace runs through multiple stakeholders, multiple distributors and end customers which makes it a big cumbersome process. Most of these transactions currently happen offline though in-person meetings, on calls ,e-mails and messages.It is an integrated online platform for ECAs for purchasing Hot Rolled sheets, Colled Rolled steel & Galvanised products & cross selling other Products / Services thereby creating additional revenue stream for Business.
RESEARCH
Kick-off calls
Stakeholder Interviews
Customer Interviews
Distributor Interviews
Competitve Analysis
Focus groups
DELIVERABLES
Personas
Research documents
Interview clips
DESIGN
Lo- fidelity Wireframing
Hi-fidelity wireframes
Clickable protoypes
User Journey Maps
Task Flows
Information architecture
Digital transformation with one - app that connects customers - distributors and stakeholders.
Research
Kick-off calls
The project started with a kick-off call which included the Product Owners, Technical Leads, Project Managers, Lead UX/UI Designers and Business Managers
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Stakeholder
interviews
The B2B industry usually runs on mutual trust and relationship building. The stakeholders knew how the business runs in and out throughout all the years.
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Customer interviews
The end-users - the customers could provide us inputs on the usability, pain points
and experiences they had while purchasing these products both online and offline
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Feature
listing
Post the research phase a detailed feature list was created taking into consideration the stakeholder perspective as well the customer inputs. The list included features,specifications,feature prioritization and descriptions.
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Defining the problem
ECA portal needs to overcome various challenges faced in the B2B consumer buying platform making it more efficient and a transparent process for every user. The current process followed by the users is tedious which includes manual process for data entry, offline follow-ups with customers and last minute hassles for processing orders and cancellations. As the process has three major user groups - Customers, Distributors and Business Managers in loop who need to work together , a platform which can be seamless and help connect , identify and process data is required. ECA portal aims to help consumers onboard seamlessly and provide a convenient and a reliable platform to browse through different products, connect with the Distributor , complete the price negotiations and successfully place his orders.
PROJECT GOALS
1. Increase customer acquisition by converting more visitors into subscribers
2. Collect better data in order to provide users with better personalization
3. Change the customer buying journey
 way forward
4..Dynamic interactions for buying/selling steel products
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
1. The design should be modular and flexible - this includes messaging, imagery, and overall flow.
2. Balance educating the user, the number of steps in the flow, and the amount of data collected with the ease of getting through the flow quickly.
User distribution
The users identified for the research were based out in 6 different zones across India. A set of 3 user roles were created from every zone - North/South/East/West/South West/North-East India.
Persona Mapping
What our users had to say
A detailed research was conducted with the different personas identified. The interview conducted identified the pain points, experiences and opportunity areas for the user.
Task Flows
A set of task flows were created post feature prioritization. These tasks flows helped us identify the tasks the user would be performing on the platform.
Design for trust
Most customers trust the ECA brand for the product quality and genuineness. Customers even tend to wait if a purchase order takes longer than usual, only need a clarity on when the product will actually reach him.
Customers also mentioned if they had an idea for the available material, they can pre-order some products to avoid last minute hassels.
Seamless interactions
Seamless interactions across roles on the platform. The different roles should be able to seamlessly access the enquiries and know what phase the enquiry is in.. Information should be routed to every assignee in the most feasible manner to enable clarity at every touchpoint for every user.
The UX challenges
The project had a number of product challenges that needed to be addressed with smart user experience deliverables. One of them was keeping the platform fair and engaging, without involving a traditional payment system. How do we make people “deposit” and “exchange” their most valuable asset, build trust and spark curiosity, without overwhelming with a heavy Onboarding flow. After a number of UX tests, we created a customer facing portal and add on features for the distributor.
The journey was split in a number of intuitive actions to ensure all modules were revisited and tested.We also designed a a few workshops internally to make sure the process was smooth and the understanding was clear as to how the data would flow from the customer end to the distributor end.
Experience Mapping
Design Direction
Interactive Onboarding- Shorten big tasks into quicker navigations. Onboarding designed in a way - its interactive, fun for the user and gives a glimpse of what the application is all about
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Seamless Navigation- Nesting information to improve discoverability and also recommend content to help users navigate less. Minimum click throughs for any task to be completed.
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Feedback mechanism- Users seek for instant feedback for their action at every stage. Be it error messages/success messages/Hint texts etc. A new user would find it helpful if he gets any context while filling up forms, or providing any information in the application.
Initial concepts
Component structuring
Mobile Wireframe explorations
Lo-fi /Hi-fi Wireframes
