PROJECT REQUEST
A custom made system for funeral homes to organize their business, florist to streamline their orders and clients to customize a funeral viewing
The primary objective was to design a web app facilitating funeral homes to register, manage, and sell their services. Simultaneously, the app aimed to provide florists with timely information about incoming orders. While giving the customers the chance to design their loved-ones funeral.
Building a platform with limited industry references posed a unique challenge. The goal was to create a solution tailored to the specific needs of funeral home owners, customers and florists.
Losing a loved one is one of the most difficult times of a person’s life and making sure the funeral arrangements are in place should be as easy as possible. Visualizing how flowers will look around the casket/urn was not possible. Behind the scenes, there are many parties involved/communication that needs to take place in order for the funeral ceremony to go smoothly.
I joined the product design team during the scope definition and requirements gathering. We applied Scrum methodology and maintained direct, continuous communication with the development team, project manager, and stakeholders.
The following were my main duties on the product design team:
- Created and kept updated the design documentation: User persona, user journey, userflows, wireflows, etc.
- Ensured responsive designs for various devices and screen sizes.
- Maintained design quality control in the development of the product.
- Perform usability testing to gather feedback and refine designs.
- Regularly meet with stakeholders to discuss progress, gather feedback, and adjust design strategies as needed.
- Design documents and presentations.
In-depth research into funeral home operations and florist requirements. Started with storytelling to give me a sense of the people who I was designing for. Then based on these stories, I built user personas for each role that was on the platform.
At first, the client wanted two roles: funeral home and customer. But I signaled that the florist must be included in order to have a more seamless ordering process, and an Administrator of the platform that could control the system. So there were four roles in total.
After that, I met up with the client and we defined functionalities for an MVP. I started working on giving it a structure through a sitemap and userflows.
Started with storytelling to give me a sense of the people who I was designing for. Then based on these stories, I built user personas for each role that was on the platform.
At first, the client wanted two roles: funeral home and customer. After considering the flow of the app, I signaled that the florist must be included in order to have a more seamless ordering process, and an Administrator of the platform that could control the system. So there were four roles in total.
If we didn't add all the roles involved, it wouldn't accomplish the goal of being a single place for each person involved.
A challenging thing in the process was to clean up the functionalities list, we needed to include the most valuable ones to test out the idea first. I conducted a benchmark research, interviews to possible users, user journeys to list out functionalities that were useful to include.
I organized them in a plausability matrix to define which ones were most valuable and plausibles.
After we had a list of functionalities, I did an information architecture and user flows to organize the screens I needed to design for the product. This flows are made with the help of the backend and frontend developers, so we analyze if there's something missing or the logic behind each action of the user.
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Florists: Floral businesses can sign up to manage their inventory and connect with funeral homes for purchasing flowers for funeral events. They can also handle payments and payouts directly within their dashboard.
Funeral homes: Funeral homes can sign up and easily share floral arrangements with family and friends before they purchase. Funeral homes can also partner with florists and manage all their financial information inside the platform.
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Customers: These are the family members and friends who use Flower Arranger to purchase floral arrangements for their deceased loved ones. They can access the platform through a private link provided by the respective funeral home to purchase floral arrangements.
Implemented a user-friendly process for funeral homes to register and manage orders efficiently.
Allowed customers to log in, enabling them to create and customize funeral viewings.
Ensured orders reached both florists and funeral homes, optimizing the overall process.
Facilitated secure payments through the platform, streamlining financial transactions.
Because of time constrictions, I made high-fidelity wireframes and mockups to review with the client. Prototypes were effectively tested with the owner and a few possible users resulting in positive feedback.
If I had more time for the project, I would have conduct more user-testing in order to check main flows thoroughly.
