Shukran is a digital tipping platform designed to help service workers receive and manage their tips. I led the branding and visual design, addressing UX issues like a one-size-fits-all interface, complex registration, and regulatory limits on tip withdrawals, impacting service workers and tippers.
BACKGROUND
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The Shukran team during a user testing session
CHALLENGE
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The first version of Shukran struggled to provide a personalised and efficient experience for both service workers and tippers. The platform's single interface, cumbersome registration process, and regulatory restrictions on tip withdrawals led to a poor user experience.
Old Shukran UI
Single Interface
The same interface serves both service workers and tippers, yet they have different tasks they need to achieve.
Cumbersome Registration Process
Tippers were required to complete a lengthy registration process before tipping, causing frustration and delays
Regulatory Restrictions
Due to new regulations from the Central Bank of Kenya, we could no longer maintain our wallet feature, which affected money deposits
Our research was based off the results from user tests we had carried out. This was primarily achieved through observations and asking questions. Access to users (tippers) at this point was a challenge since many restaurants did not want us to interfere with their customers. Due to this, we decided to carry out testing with our internal staff who had not interacted with the product.
RESEARCH
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Long tip time
Tipping took too long, averaging two minutes
User expectation
Users expected to see the tip amount confirmed on the phone number page
Lengthy registration process
The registration process was seen as unnecessarily lengthy
Tipper expectation
Some tippers wondered if they could also be tipped
IDEATION
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The team mainly used the "crazy eights" method for ideation. However, we faced a challenge as we used Mural as our ideation tool, which most of the team found difficult to use for sketching out their ideas, especially since not everyone in the team was a designer. As a result, we had to depend a lot on verbal explanations from the team to understand their ideas.
Translation of the mural ideation boards:
DESIGN
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We started by distinguishing between tippers and service workers during onboarding. This helped us address each group's unique challenges and separate their workflows.
Dining at a restaurant is not just to satisfy hunger but also to enjoy good food, and good spaces, catch up with friends or unwind after a long day.
We needed to extend this experience in the digital environment by making it less cumbersome for customers to tip, and not make it yet another task.
We simplified this by making it possible for tippers to scan a QR code which directly takes them to where they can input the service worker’s information with no registration to the platform required from their end.
Restaurant merchandise designed to make tipping simple
For service workers to access their tips they had to register to a SACCO. At the moment this was the option we had to remain compliant.
New regulations did not permit us to retain wallets which were there initially in the 1st version, this affected how service workers withdrew their tips.
For this reason, we introduced a SACCO to allow service workers to withdraw their tips. As an additional value, they could also save and join a Service Worker community
IMPACT
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Reduce tip time
Tippers were no longer required to register to tip
Personalised experience
Separating the tipper and service worker flows enabled us to design a tailored experience for each type of user
Compliant Withdrawal
We managed to stay compliant with the regulators by using the SACCO route for tip withdrawals
LESSON
07
This process made me understand the importance of doing extensive research on key players such as regulators to avoid future hurdles.
Considering the need for immediate access to tips among Kenyan service workers, a SACCO withdrawal process may not be the most suitable option due to potential delays. In future, I would explore and test other options.