Design Thinking Process

In order to understand the problem, I used my hexagon-shaped problem framing framework to help me identify key touchpoints regarding the problem my client wanted to solve and what the outcome of the product should be.

Goal

• - A solution that allows black people in the diaspora to access and patronize black businesses in their respective communities.
• - A solution that increases the visibility of black businesses.

Audience

For this application to be successful the audience was split into two user groups which are:

Businesses: The provider of goods and services.

• - Local business owners
• - Mom and Pop shops
• - Freelancers

Residents: The general black population who live in their respective neigbourhoods.

• - New immigrants
• - Students
• - Community groups

Location

Toronto, Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Waterloo

Possibile Scalability: Province wide i.e Ontario, Montreal etc.

Impact

Assumption: Relieve the stress it takes to find goods and services that are relatable to user.

Assumption: Increase the visibility of black owned businesses.

Request

Native Mobile App

Time

Undisclosed

Customer Research & Insights

Due to time and budget constraints I decided to use my personal network as my user research audience. As an immigrant from Africa myself, I interviewed people close to me and other user groups like owners of African grocery stores and hairdressers. My client was also tasked with the same objective.

Some of the questions asked were:

• - What is your current process for finding goods and services that you can relate to.
• - How did you meet black people in your community when you immigrated.
• - What is the ROI for the current marketing channels of your business.

Insights:

• - Social media was the key channel for finding goods and services provided by black people but the limitation was it required a referral from someone in his/her personal network.
• - Marketing on traditional platforms like social media and search engines required major input of financial resources to get inflow of potential customers.

Hypothesis Problem Statement

Black people do not have instant access to find black businesses and, black businesses are overwhelmed with spending so much financially to attract similar customers.

Ideation

In order to visualize the concept I decided to create a user persona so that I could map out the user journey and establish potential features and functionalities for the application.

Persona

Fiyin, 25

Immigrant, Nigeria

Fiyin is a new immigrant who came from Nigeria to attend University of Toronto for her Master's degree in Business Information Systems. She came here without her family and lives in a one bedroom condo. She is trying to get familair with her new environment and she has a week to resume school.

Frustration

She has been eating too much take out food which is affecting her financially. She would like to buy some african grocery items so that she can cook food and stop spending ridiculous amounts on take-out.

Goal

She's looking for an app where she can find options for nigerian grocery stores near her area.

User Journey

Assuming Fiyin has seen blackfyre ad and has downloaded the app from the app store.