“E-milk”- a milk delivery app (UI/UX case study)

This was a design challenge. The exercise took me roughly 3 days to finish, including the documentation of this case study.

Problem Statement

In today’s day and age, access to almost everything has moved to digital means. E-comm solutions today have become a primary method of catering to our daily needs. You can literally order a single ‘Gulab Jamun’ to heavy electronics online, yet there is room for solving some interesting problems. Milk is one of the most common items of daily consumption, and yet, for most of us, access and distribution are controlled by local suppliers and distributors. The challenge is to design a Milk Delivery App to deliver quality milk to people at their convenience.

Understanding the goal (Why)

I believe this product is important for two reasons-

1)Almost every person is a potential customer: The first thing that everybody looks forward to is fulfilling daily morning needs such as milk, eggs, butter, etc., as required. The reason being, milk is a daily and basic necessity of human beings, and without a second thought, we can say that there is no need to convince people of its merit. Therefore we can assume that every person is our prospective customer here, and they are right in front of you.

With the fast-paced urban lifestyle, more and more people will prefer the ease and comfort of a milk delivery system over daily visits to the physical store, which get even more challenging in poor weather conditions, medical emergencies, the current COVID situation, etc.

2)Comparatively new concept with less competition: This app will not be competing with the online grocer players or hypermarkets, but the mom-and-pop stores in every neighborhood, so, therefore, fewer competitors exist in the market to date as the concept is relatively new. This increases the chances of the app outshining the others, creating a business opportunity, and eventually generating satisfactory revenue.

Defining the audience

We can first categorize our users into two high-level audiences-

Commercial:

• Retailers such as Grocery stores, convenience stores, selling milk bottles or packets and need milk in bulk for their customers.
• Shops or Outlets that sell dairy products or sweet shops selling milk-based desserts, and fresh milk is their primary ingredient.

Residential: People who need milk for their everyday domestic needs.

Considering the limited time, I will be focusing on a single high-level audience, i.e., Residential, from whose perspective I would show the solution.

Residentials can also be further categorized into several different groups with opportunities to work on-

• Millennials and Gen Z consisting of the working professionals and the students, it becomes a real burden for them to buy fresh milk due to their work hustle, especially if they live alone.
• Older Generation or Baby Boomers- For Senior citizens with various health concerns, getting a regular milk supply in early hours is challenging. Digital products sometimes leave them under-served because they have low tech-savviness, and with a relevant solution, they can be served better.
• Disabled people- I’m not sure how easily people with motor conditions get milk at present. I believe there is an opportunity to create solutions to serve their needs better.

Further considering their needs in term of milk requirements, we can categorize them into-

Regular: Users for whom a subscription model will work better.

Occasional: Users needing an on-demand service or standalone orders.

Understanding the existing milk supply system and the problem associated with it-

To understand how the current system works, I conducted User Interviews and also went through the reviews of similar apps such as Country Delight, Awesome Dairy, and Doodhvale (Since all these apps currently operate only in big cities, unlike mine, it was quite challenging to figure out the exact features they hold. Hence, I may have missed out on some features during the analysis.) to know the features, attracting and retaining the users, and even the ones they missed out on.

User Interviews were conducted with 5 people ranging from 20 to 52 years old, varying from regular milk buyers to infrequent ones. The aim was to understand what motivates or demotivates them from buying milk in a particular way and their milk consumption habits and patterns. Some were telephonic interviews, while some I ran in person.

I got the following insights from the research-

I found that most people I interviewed do not prefer using the Milk Delivery App.

So why don’t these people use the apps?

As I discovered in the research phase, these were some reasons-

• Users said that the apps they tried failed to provide enough reasons to trust the brands or the platform because of a lack of proper description, images, no ratings, and reviews.
• Some people were very particular about the brand they consume. In contrast, some drank only the open milk from their nearby milkmen, and the unavailability of these options on the platform made them stick to their traditional way.
• For most people, these apps did not operate in their cities.

Besides using the app, I found that currently, there are three main ways in which milk reached these consumers.

1) Regular delivery of packed milk by nearby shopkeepers or retailers

• Payment is usually made on a weekly or monthly basis.
• Most people prefer the morning delivery of milk.
• The timing and regularity are always an issue as there is no fixed schedule, and it keeps changing based on the shopkeeper’s convenience.
• In case the milk is needed in between the day, they have to visit the store as most of the shopkeepers don’t provide home delivery during these hrs.

2) Regular delivery of open milk by local milkmen

Along with the insights mentioned above, the other following insights I got were-

• Most people expressed that they are conscious about the environment and their consumption habits, so they prefer open milk.
• For some people, Hygiene and Quality were the concern sometimes, as in this case, as they are not aware of what goes behind the process.
• You have to be physically present to ensure that you get the desired quantity, i.e., when the milkman measures the milk with a beaker before pouring it in another vessel; otherwise, it’s challenging to figure out the amount.

3) Purchasing milk directly from the shops

• Users find going to shop for purchasing milk every day as a repetitive and time-consuming task.
• Users have to compromise on their sleep and comfort if they want milk during early hrs.
• Users sometimes buy other dairy products such as egg and butter, along with milk, while visiting the shop.
• Users expressed that finding the time to go to a store is problematic on a workday, and after 9.00 PM, the stores aren’t even open.
• After the struggle to search for a Kirana store and finding that milk is unavailable is really annoying.

Brainstorming and listing the ideas

After having a better understanding of who I was designing for and their context, I went ahead to explore some innovative solutions. The idea was to go creative without worrying about the constraints.

Below are the three solutions, listed with pros and cons that I came up with-

1) An app to find the nearby Milk Kiosks:

A mobile app for finding a nearby kiosk where you can see their location, availability of milk, type of milk sold, reviews, ratings and prices. The kiosk will have a touch-screen, a sink, and a credit card reader. Users can approach the booth, pick the milk type and an amount, and after paying, they can fill the milk by placing a bottle underneath.

Pros of Milk Kiosks

1. It will be sustainable as refilling eliminates plastic packaging.
2. Easier distribution and lack of packaging lead to the low cost of production.

Cons: Poor weather conditions, a possible long queue, touching the screen, especially in this Covid situation, make it difficult to use.

2) An app that delivers milk by Drone:

An app in which a drone will deliver all the items to your doorstep.

Amazon recently announced Prime Air — a future delivery system designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones.

We can implement something similar to this.

Amazon wins FAA approval to deliver packages by drone

Amazon.com: Prime Air

Pros of Drone Delivery: It eliminates both wait times by offering same-day delivery and the cost of human labor.

Cons:

1. Limited distance and weight may hold back drone delivery.
2. This would be a lot of engineering effort and have to hire industrial designers leading to higher costs.

3) A normal milk Delivery App:

An app that delivers pasteurized milk at the user’s doorstep but humans deliver it. Users just have to choose, click, pay, and receive the milk.

I believe that the 3rd solution will have the most significant impact and will also be easier to implement than the other two. Also, unlike 1st, users will not have to be physically present to get the milk, which acts as the most significant friction right now, considering the pandemic situation.

Solving

As decided above, the solution that I will work on will be a milk delivery app, targeting residential specifically focused on Millennials and Gen Z with varying milk requirements.

Keeping these things in mind and the limited time I had, I decided on the following two goals-

• Building trust among our users.
• Providing milk in a sustainable way, so I believe we could attract customers who appreciate eco-friendly products and can definitely stand out in the market, outshining competitors.

I started with making a few assumptions that helped me to build a relevant product-

1. “E-milk” is a milk delivery service providing quality milk regularly that has partnered with small emerging brands and existing milkmen.
2. The company’s mission is to do business in ways that are good for people and the planet; hence, the milk is provided only in tamper-proof glass bottles.
3. Milk orders are not taken at wholesale levels.
4. There is a separate app for Delivery persons to manage and track the orders.

Defining tasks

I started making a list of the main tasks the user needed to complete to use the product successfully.

• Enter the location
• Pick items to add
• View detailed information about the items
• Add in cart
• View cart
• Choose a one-time order or plan a subscription model.
• Pay for the items

Rough sketching

Next, I did some paper sketching, outlining some possible layouts to imagine the interactions our product needs to support visually.

Also, considering the limited time, I will focus on one primary flow in my solution.

High-Fidelity Prototype

After this, I directly went ahead to design the final screens.

Wire Flow required to buy a subscription model for regular milk supply

Now, let’s look at how I tried achieving the goals set above through this solution.

1) Building a trusted platform

But how can I encourage the users to leave their feedbacks?

2) Building a sustainable solution

All ‘single-layer’ plastic garbage analysis revealed that 57 percent of it is only Mother Dairy and Amul milk packets.

Reduce, Rebate, and Reuse: Govt Targets Plastic Milk Pouches

And therefore, the government is already looking for various alternatives or schemes to discourage the purchase of multiple plastic milk packets.

This in itself generates a need for an environmentally friendly solution, building a product that stands out and can outshine its competitor. So I assumed that the company “E-milk” sells milk only in a glass bottle.

There are two primary reasons behind it-

1. Using glass is a more sustainable option compared to plastic, and people understand this. They understand that their purchasing decisions affect the environment. So they prefer sustainable purchasing patterns in their daily lives, and we also know that users prefer socially responsible companies (Noble Edge Effect).
2. The life of most plastic packaging is over almost immediately after the product is used or consumed, which is why making reusable glass packaging is definitely a better option for a good business model.

But how will we motivate people to return their glass bottles to make this work?

Introducing GlassCoins to make buying milk exciting and fun.

Considering the points above, I gamified the system and thought of introducing GlassCoins. The concept is simple- You return 1 glass bottle, you receive 20 points, which you can use on your purchase.

Let’s look at how is this implemented in the final designs-

Motivating users to earn GlassCoins by emphasizing its environmental advantages

The downside of this solution

The mechanisms of factories and the expenses for producing glass bottles will increase cost, increasing the overall cost of the product for the commoners.

What is the future scope?

During my research, I found that people prefer buying other items like bread, butter, eggs, along with milk, so in the future, we can extend our service for these products and can even introduce a subscription model.

How will we measure the success of the product?

Since the wire flow was for the subscription plan, metrics will also be related to that.

Subscription completion time — how long does it take to finish the purchase of a subscription plan.

Subscription success rate — how many users finished the subscription process and paid for it.

NPS (Net Promoter Score)- After successfully buying a plan, users' ratings can help us measure their satisfaction.

Subscription feature retention- If the users bought a plan but canceled in between or didn’t extend their plan, there is a possibility that the experience lacks something.

No. of occasional buyers who opted for a subscription plan, especially the customized one.

Also, if users start returning their glass bottles in a significant quantity, we can say that the idea of introducing GlassCoins is successful.

And that’s a wrap. Thank you for reading!

If you enjoyed reading it, you could even clap 👏🏽 below.

If you have any feedback or want to chat with me, drop me a message at apathania@bt.iitr.ac.in or connect me on LinkedIn.