harbinger
Ever seen the future
20 minutes before it happens?
Make the right calls when investing in stocks, forex and cryptocurrencies.
I designed the Harbinger web application.Industry
FinTech
Platform
Web Application
Project type
Product Design
Stage
M.V.P.
When
2018
intro
Harbinger
Your dealership. Digital!
the team & my role
COO
Product Manager
Product Owner
Developer
Designer
product
Harbinger provides you with the means to make the right calls when investing in stocks, FOREX and cryptocurrencies.
You will have access to market moving news streaming in real-time, as well as analysis tools for determining precedents of current events.
You decide the best course of action. Make informed decisions using Harbinger or get up to speed with economics using our free intuitive tools.
client
Carflow is a web application that allows hundreds of dealeships across Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg to manage, coordinate and promote their inventory.
problems
what are we trying to do here?
for the business
Testing a new service that would allow Minutizer to expand their offering. In line with the brand vision, navigating a blue ocean for now and trying to get the necessary intel to develop a sustainable new revenue stream.
for the customers
Make it easier for current customers to charge for the extra time spend with clients offering services via phone. Allowing others to offer more by consulting or entertaining using their voice.
brief
As a consultant I want to be able to monetize the time I spend with my clients. Doing it via phone comes more natural to 30+ yr old customers that haven’t made yet a solid connection with Skype.
challenges
There was no existing market at the time for such a service. The benefit was sailing on a pretty blue ocean, but being pioneers meant we had plenty of hurdles ahead.
process
the design timeline
Uncover
Why are we doing this?
My collaboration with Minutizer spread across 3 years, I was familiar with their product. But this was a new market.
I began with individual interviews with the CEO and CTO to gather the vision and expectations regarding the product and make sure it’s feasible from a tech perspective.
What you could find in the app store were apps that had a built in VoIP service that could be used as a reference for charging.
User research was informed by support requests gathered by the customer experience team and informal live chats at two of the events that I attended, together with the marketing team.
So who were we going to serve?
The original assumption went towards those that were not currently charging for the consulting done via phone. But it turns out that those that were already doing it, albeit in a less precise manner were the ones that would give our solution a solid shot.
As mentioned above, this was a blue ocean: no solid competition in sight.
Strategy
How will we do it?
The app was not going to be actively promoted. Only a couple of hundreds of users would use it, a very small percent of Minutizer’s pool of clients.
Our intent was to get as much intel as we could about user’s needs, expectations, use cases and behaviors. We could not have done that without an actual product.
The smartphone client would connect to the service via a dedicated API, and when triggered by an incoming call would search the caller in our database to validate it’s standing in the system: is it a member, does it have enough funds?
Since we were aligned, I came back with a set of flows meant to cover the various scenarios we wanted the app to offer.
Also connected with the CTO and made sure the API accounted for connections from Android clients.
Execution
What should we deliver?
After three iterations we clarified the basic flows and set of features we would provide the users with, and I proceeded with sketching the wireframes for the main screens of the application. There were plenty of questions to answer. Browsing Google Play, seeking similar apps that allow call duration tracking did not yield encouraging results.
Thus, finding a developer willing to take on the challenge of logging calls on Android was not easy. Trying to minimize costs led us to consider enlisting the services of a freelance developer. There were 3 weeks with no visible progress. We had to move the needle, so we went back to looking for a better solution and an increased budget.
After weeks of searching, the negotiations with a brave development company were completed and I went ahead and shared the specifications that were solid, up to that point. We had a kickoff meeting and agreed on a development calendar. The initial estimate meant that the app would be ready to launch within 3 months.
They started developing a skeleton for the app based on the wireframes and also the research regarding hooking onto incoming and outgoing phone calls in order to log them and track their duration. Having received validation from all the stakeholders (now including a tech representative from the developer) I proceeded with the visual design of the interface.
Review
Does it work?
I remained in the project to oversee the implementation of the app and also acted as a second layer of QA, on behalf of my client. Managing a project with technical conundrums is not a comfortable role. It wasn’t easy to to balance expectations and patience to reach the end.
Towards the end of the fall we published the first stable RC (release candidate) and in December, after ~6 weeks of iterations we had a solution that covered most of our initial goals.
A group of 10 beta testers were the core source for feedback and input on how to improve both the application and the service on the whole.
solutions
what we brought to life
DESIGN Duration
25 weeks
DESIGN Budget
16K EUR
Developer
Expert Network
still curious, eh?
but keep in mind it’s not a supported product.
results
takeaways
for me
for my client
how about you?
User eXperience design
How the product works, how it feels when you use it and how it meets your needs and expectations.
User Interface design
How the product looks like: colors, fonts, shapes, animations and transitions.
interaction
design
How the product looks like: colors, fonts, shapes, animations and transitions.