Brand
Project
Overview
Zycara’s mission is to help small and medium-sized businesses recover costly bad debt, build their credit, and create lasting, healthy business relationships in the most economical and efficient way. The Zycara Web App will allow businesses the ability to post, monitor, and communicate bad debt.
Role
Product Designer
Product Strategy, UX Research, Wireframes
Team
UI Designer, Product Designer, Developers
Duration
8 Months
I interviewed small business owners to understand the common basic pain points in how bad debt occurs. Data from the user interviews provided clear insights into how to approach solving this business problem of unpaid debt and improve business health.
Bad debt occurs in two (2) ways:
The Problem
$3 Trillion in Accounts Receivables with $150 Billion in Bad Debt
Collection fees upwards of 50% via traditional channels;
Often higher costs for legal recourse.
Lack of debt recovery solutions and innovation for B2B;
Current solutions focus on customer insight, language, and timing.
Low support for business growth and identify risky business relationships.
"How can I improve my creditworthiness."
Goals
Frustrations
"I don't have time or energy to chase unpaid or late invoices."
Goals
Frustrations
"We want to provide great lending options for creditworthy businesses."
Goals
Frustrations
Design Sprints with engineering, product, and business stakeholders were conducted to reach a consensus that was democratic and fun. These sprints helped take ambiguity of what the business thought of the problem and quickly decide on some tangible solutions to implement and test.
Lo-fi prototypes were tested with the stakeholders during design reviews to get feedback on the functionality, UX copy, and interactions of the product.
Unmoderated User Testing A sample size of 10 volunteer users from the hotel industry was asked to participate in a usability study. All participants were using the app to carry out hypothetical tasks.
I started creating the information architecture and low-fi concepts for primary use cases. After having consensus from product managers, developers, and stakeholders on the mockups, I began to conduct usability tests with the low-fidelity mockups. Once we had confidence in the design, we began the next phase of design.
I started creating the information architecture and low-fi concepts for primary use cases. After having consensus from product managers, developers, and stakeholders on the mockups, I began to conduct usability tests with the low-fidelity mockups. Once we had confidence in the design, we began the next phase of design.
#175B76
Primary Color
#cddedd
Secondary Color
#e5e5d8
Alternate Color
#ff5509
Accent Color
For version 1(Minimum Lovable Product) of this application we focused on the 3 core functions:
Signup & Onboarding, Upload & Post Invoices, and Credit Builder.
Since the Zycara brand and customer experience is crucial for launch. We are rolling out the pilot product along with the red carpet service to make sure sign up is easy and the onboarding experience delightful.
The ability for users to easily interface with their business accounting software to mass upload invoices for monitoring. Users are empowered to recover the unpaid debt by posting on the Zycara platform, which affects their Zyscore.
Users are empowered to recover unpaid debt by posting on the Zycara platform, which affects their Zyscore(Propriety Algorithm).
Project Design Challenges & Learnings
Working with overseas developers, I found the time and language barriers to be difficult at times. In order to confront this challenge, I took the time to understand the developments workflow and see what accommodations I could make to make the transfer of knowledge more clear. Luckily I am familiar with Atlassian products and so once I understood their project management tools I was able to start using Confluence for product documentation.
Another challenge that I faced in terms of team collaboration was the low level of social engagement. Once I sensed this type of siloed working style. I wanted to extend the context of the project so that development felt more involved in the solution. So we did a social happy hour to explore possible use cases of the product. After the exercise, the developers were really appreciative and opened up the gates for better Q&A of product roadblocks.
As a Product Designer, our biggest challenge is creating clear objectives from ambiguous ideas. So getting comfortable with not knowing much about this business credibility space. By taking inventory of all the aspects of business credit, I was able to acknowledge them and learn.
The data gathered from the previous steps were used to develop the optimal solution for the user. The proposed and tested solution is currently being marketed for Seed Funding.
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