The Closebuy App: Discover, connect, patronise.
My role
My role
Product designer, react native app developer
Tools
figma (design), typescript react-native powered by the expo-sdk, appwrite (auth, database), firebase (storage)
Overview
Overview
Does anyone know where I can get 'X' around me?
"Does anyone know where I can get "X" around me?" This is a common question that we see people ask on a day-to-day basis, especially here in Nigeria. It is often asked when people need something urgently, such as a product or service. On the other hand, there are individuals or businesses that offer the required product or service, but are unaware that their services are needed just down the street.
User Research
User Research
I conducted a small experiment
After defining the problem, I conducted a series of user research to gain more insights and explore the different pain points that users encounter.
Given that the majority of the demographic in this context is between the ages of 18 and 29, I reached out to people around me and my colleagues at university. I invited them to join a WhatsApp group that I created specifically to connect businesses and people in that location.
One of the groups grew to approximately 191 participants, consisting of people who offered services or items for sale, and people who wanted to buy them. This group became a marketplace that connected buyers and sellers. Not only did it validate the problem, but it also provided a medium for us to study how participants interacted with one another in the group.- Whatsapp group created to study user inteactions Iteration 0
Iteration 0
Putting things together
After observing the interactions among group participants, I classified them into two distinct groups based on their actions. The first group consists of business owners who regularly advertise their products or services in the group on a daily basis.
- Typical scenario of businesses advertising their products / services
The second group of users consists of buyers who are looking to purchase products or services. These users typically make public requests in the group to find the product or service they want to buy.- Typical scenario of buyers requesting a product / service
Based on the above observations, I created an ideal user-flow diagram to visualize my thought process before diving into designing the high-fidelity designs.
The primary feature I designed to solve the problem for buyers is the search function. By using this feature, buyers can search for the products or services they intend to purchase. They can then choose to view products, places, or people that match their search query and are located within their vicinity.
On the other hand, businesses can set up their stores by adding information about the products or services they offer. Potential buyers can then reach out to them using the messaging feature of the app.
One of the main features of the app is its social functionality. Both businesses and buyers can view, share, like, and comment on content in the app's feed. This feature was designed to increase user engagement.Next steps
Next steps
Just the beginning
At the time of writing, the application is undergoing public beta testing and collecting feedback from users. Overall, I aim to collaborate with stakeholders to brainstorm additional solutions that streamline the content consumption and purchasing experience for users on the app.
- Closebuy app in testflight
From a development standpoint - Fetching and storing large files on iOS presented one of my biggest development hurdles because the version of react native that was available at the time had bugs when it came to fetching blobs. I learned through working on this project that, in order to address platform-based challenges, I may need to further investigate native programming on iOS and Android independently.
