A Website for Providing Employment to the Needy
From a product management and design perspective.
Unemployment has always been one of the significant social problems in the world and is an important indicator of economic growth. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total number of unemployed people in the United States is 6 million which is an increase prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the reasons for unemployment include financial crisis, lack of education, and global recession. To mitigate this issue and provide employment benefits for those below the poverty line, my team developed a product that serves as a fair-trade organization for the needy. Initially, individuals facing financial problems are hired by considering their tax documents for proof. Upon hiring, they get access to content for learning artistic skills on our website. Once they acquire the desired skills, the required materials are sent to their address, and they get the opportunity to create handmade products from scratch based on the knowledge acquired from online learning. These handmade products would then be tested for quality assurance and posted on the website where customers (buyers) can make a purchase. The product cost would act as the commission fee for the employees.
Business Model
The product (a.k.a. Pathfinders) is a business-to-consumer (b2c) model where learning content is offered to the hired individuals for no charge. Once the product is up on the website and the customer has made a purchase, a help fee of 10% is deducted from the original price of the product to sustain the business and invest in buying materials for the employees. This profit is reinvested in the business for other purposes like marketing and branding.
User Personas
To understand our product’s typical customers, two user personas were created.
Product Design Hypothesis
Prior to developing the MVP, few assumptions and questions were established to determine whether a particular solution will succeed or not. Below are three hypotheses and their related queries represented as H1, H2, and H3.
H1: Customers will provide reliable feedback on the products they purchase.
- How to motivate customers to provide feedback to support the employees?
H2: Employees will be dedicated to finishing making the products on time.
- What are some motivating factors apart from the money that will encourage individuals to deliver quality products?
- Will employees finish completing a product when they find the skills hard to acquire and put them to practice?
H3: Employees are more likely to stay in our program when they earn more profits from the products they are creating.
On a scale of 1–10, with 1 being not at all to 10 being absolute, are you receiving enough wages to fulfill at least one of your financial goals?
MVP Process
To implement the MVP, some REAL goals were established.
- Framing user stories and acceptance criteria for both the buyers and the sellers.
- Storyboards correlating with the persona.
- Designing low-fidelity prototypes for Homepage, Product Catalog, About Us, and Contact Us page using Figma.
1. User Stories and Acceptance Criteria
The user stories focused on both the buyers’ and sellers’ perspectives where the values and goals of both the parties were highlighted. Additionally, some pointers were included on when they would accept the product based on the type of pages they would have access to.
2. Story Boarding
Two storyboards were created, one for each persona, depicting their problems, needs, and emotions step-by-step and how the MVP serves as a solution for them.
3. Low-Fidelity Prototype
Based on the user stories and storyboards, the final step was to create a low-fidelity prototype of our website. Prototypes for the Homepage, a Product Catalog page that lists handmade products crafted by our employees, an About Us page depicting what we do and our values, an Application page that allows users to apply for work with us, and a page for submitting tax and income documents to be qualified for gaining employment benefits were created. All the pages were designed using Figma.
Prototype Link https://www.figma.com/file/E9rLFvkQMlwHCQaJDnhCnO/Pathfinder-MVP?node-id=0%3A1
Next Steps a.k.a Future Product Vision
In the next three years, I wish to establish my product in and around Central Illinois, particularly focusing on areas where there is increased unemployment and financial needs. Based on the profits generated from the help fee (charging 10% of transaction fee from customers to sustain our business), workshops would be set up so that people who don’t have access to the Internet can also benefit from our employment program. More branding and marketing would be pursued to gain the attention of customers, thereby encouraging them to support people in need of employment. A team of 100 would be required to take care of monitoring and updating the product catalog page, conducting quality assurance on the handmade products developed by our employees, doing social media marketing and branding, conducting user research as user needs evolves and changes, and designers and developers to update our website regularly. I also vision for an established fair-trade organization that could be incentivized by the state government to sustain our business in the long run and get widely recognized by other parts of the United States.
Thanks for reading! :) Feel free to leave your comments.
