Everyday help like “Which dentist to go to in this area?”
JANTA
JANTA
‘Janta’ needed help in identifying ‘Product Market fit’. I conducted concept tests and interviews that narrowed down the focus of the app, successfully onboarding 100+ recent alumni from a Business school in India.
Business Needs
The founders had an idea around tapping into ‘Hyperlocal networks’ to get ‘everyday help’. Founders wanted to understand if the intended target audience would use this app in their everyday lives as envisioned (Product-market fit).
In case users install the app, because the university asks them to, would they find it useful upon discovery?
Conducted workshops with stakeholders who were new to user research: (On the left) to identify business goals and (on the right) to understand business goals.
Research Process
Goals
HMW understand how recent graduates seek help and advice from their alumnae network for everyday help?
Goals:
Uncover needs & goals when it comes to reaching out to their network for help & advice for everyday help
Identify the end-to-end process of how people get everyday help using platforms online & their thought process and prior experiences
Understand current pain points, frustrations, and barriers about seeking everyday help from their network & how they would improve these
Methods
This is a project with both generative 1x1 interviews as well as concept testing, which was run over 3 months (6-7h a week).
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Generative interviews since we wanted to
understand users’ specific goals and needs while reaching out to network,
Identify who they reach out to, which platform they currently use and how they go about it.
Identify current pain points while seeking help from their network
Concept testing since
the stakeholders wanted feedback on the current designs
This is a unique opportunity to hear user’s first thoughts, initial reaction and first action
we can then understand what they’re confused about on the screen
Recruiting Criteria
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We recruited the users through this google form.
We tried to identify those who said ‘yes’ I’ve identified someone to talk about ‘jobs’, ‘flats and flatmates’ or ‘social events’ help within the last 1 year. This was so that they can draw on lived experience when answering questions.
Discussion guide
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What comes to your mind when I say your network?
Could you tell me about the last time you reached out to your network while looking for flat and flatmates
a. Who did you reach out to?
How did you decide this is the right person to reach out to?
What was it about?
When did you reach out?
Through which platform?
How was the experience?
What worked well for you?
What didn’t work (Ask to understand root cause)
What did you successfully get out of it?
What was missing from the experience?
Why was it important for you?
What other kind of work related’ help have you turned to your network for?
Can you recount the experience of the last time when when you turned to your network for this sort of help?
What are some reasons you sought help in that situation?
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We focused on 5 screens for the concept test. These were based off the main tasks that one would perform on this product such as scroll through, add a post, browse through communities, people, chat.
For each concept:
Describe what you are seeing using your own words
What is your first impression of this screen?
What’s the first task you’d want to do on this page?
Where do you currently do this task (product / medium)
How does this compare to that screen?
What other tasks do you think you can do on this page?
Explain what is confusing on this screen
Why do you think that’s confusing
Explain what’s missing from this screen
If you could change anything on this screen, what would you change?
Why would you change that?
(Maybe - if they don’t notice the main thing on the page, ask for more until they arrive there and understand how imp they think that task is - is this leading?)
How would you describe this to a friend or family member?
Recommendations and Impact
Highlights of usability observation
My first action would be to ‘scroll’: ”I thought it’s just another feed.”
Users didn’t know they could filter out information on the feed.
It feels a lot like Linkedin!
Do we really need another app with a ‘chat’ feature?
How might we (HMW)
We used the following HMWs to activate insights and identify areas to work on:
A portion of our users are going to be silent scrollers / peekers of the app:
What value do we provide them with this app? How might we empower them? Could we use categories of ‘empowerment’ or ‘social influence’ for this? (from the Octalysis framework)
Considering the hesitation with asking for help
“HMW allow different modes of asking for help that allows them to ask confidential questions without identification?”
HMW allow a vibe-check to happen online?
HMW ease the process of asking for referrals?
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HMW provide a sense of privacy and freedom to someone using a professional network?
HMW help job applicants find people who will refer them within their community?
HMW allow users to customize their feed?
HMW provide a sense of ease, speed and trustworthiness while allowing users to browse through flats and flatmates?
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How might we present our ‘main screen’ to include information but have it be relevant for the user as opposed to having an infinitely scrollable feed. how else might we have our users use this product?
Many seemed against another browsing platform - They highlighted physical health, mental concentration related issues.
Information organisation within the app could benefit from sub-areas:
That the users would be forced to consume all data within a channel in the app (flats & flatmates) that they may just mute the channel and never look at it again
Insights communicated through graphs
I’ve visually represented the themes identified from this research.
Strategic Changes & Impact
Users already use ‘Linkedin’ for asking about jobs, and ‘Fishbowl’ to connect with their networks for professional circles. Users also use ‘reddit’ and quora’ to ask random questions that are anonymous. The sweet spot that Janta can target, was about asking questions from ‘trusted people’ in their extended network (and not inner circles).
In order to do this, we moved away from Linkedin UI, and focused on ‘everyday help’ from networks as a way to remain in touch with their networks.
We moved away from the focus on flats/jobs/ social help, into just an everyday help app.
It would remove the burden of having to remember what this app does vs. simplifying what it can do.
Instead of creating many channels, have an option to ‘Filter’ the basic feed.
This means depending on how active that community is, people could use filters / not.
We removed ‘Communities’ and ‘Chat’ feature at this early stage of the app. Instead the user has the option to reach people in other ways, including on existing platforms (like Whatsapp / Linkedin) if they want to.
We moved from the initial idea of ‘changing user’s behaviour’ to adapting to what users want; This helped us build a product that’s more likely to succeed.