TATA Neu: A Super App for TATA Digital

Introduction

Designed a part of an internship project at TATA Digital, Neu is a super-app that offers products and services from different TATA subsidiaries under a single umbrella. This spans across multiple product categories and services offered by companies like 1mg, Qmin, TATA AIG, Croma and many more.

Research

The goal of research was to understand what qualifies as a super app, how super apps work, why they are needed, and what makes a good and usable super app.

Although these visualisations are good for explaining individual phenomenon, but nothing ties them together to explain the whole picture.

User Sample Selection

Identifying characteristics of potential customers:

• People with limited capacity phones who can not install many apps
• Loyal TATA customers familiar with most of their services
• People wanting a common account across different apps
• People preferring a smartphone for purchasing goods and services
• People moving to new homes, who’d benefit from bundled services
• Recent adopters of digital services due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research Process and Methodologies

Competitor Analysis

4 major competitors; WeChat, Amazon, PayTM and myJio were analyzed based on:

• How did it start and where is it going?
• What do they have to offer?
• How is the brand depicted?
• Information architecture and features
• User flow and UI
• Overall impression and opportunities for improvement

Some key insights gathered were:

• Coherent UI is important even across different brands
• There’s a thin line between presentation and clutter when information is a lot

Primary Research

Survey

Some key insights from Google Forms survey:

• All participants felt they have enough phone storage available
• Qmin and TATA Capital had lowest usage rates, while TATA Sky, BigBasket and Westside had the highest number of frequent users
• WhatsApp was the most used app, followed by YouTube and Instagram
• Majority of time is spent either connecting with others, or stress busting on social media/games
• Top used apps were loved for ease of use, nice aesthetics and ease of availability of content

Interviews

Some key insights from interviews:

• Convenience: People crave convenient and speedy experiences
• Caution: People are sceptical and cautious while spending money and prefer details upfront
• Choice: A wider collection of items is always preferred
• Trust: Reviews, especially from known oes, contribute heavily to buying choices
• Connection: People show maximum preference for private text messaging apps for digitally connecting with others
• Personalisation: Unique experiences are preferred, with only relevant notifications
• Simplicity: Cluttered UI is never preferred while performing a task
• Awareness: People are not aware of super apps, or even of all functions of the ones they use

Personas

Scenarios

Customer Journey Map

Based on research, some “How might we” problem statements were derived. They were categorised into 5 themes, with personalisation being the main theme, and security and digital well-being being guiding principles.

Information Architecture

Card sorting was done with 3 people to further improve the IA.

Wireframing

• Each brand would have its own homepage, but the design language across brands would be consistent and templatised
• There’d be 2 carts: brand specific and consolidated
• Search is vital. It is kept flexible yet simple
• Explore section would have themes going on depending on seasons, trends, etc., in turn determining article content and product discounts
• Option for P2P chats alongside payment chats for engagement
• Upfront visibility of product and service bundles from across brands

High fidelity mockups

• Glassmorphic UI minimizes clashes with different product colors, while being aesthetic and unobtrusive
• Color palette of reddish orange enforces dynamism and vibrancy
• Subtle use of abstract shapes which act as binders for different UI elements

Project Takeaways

• Experienced how design gets influenced by business decisions
• Learned to balance aesthetics and usability in context of a shopping app
• Gained technical knowledge of applications like Figma and After Effects

Check out the detailed project report.

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