GRANULA DATA

Project Type: Responsive Web Design
Roles: Lead Product Designer

Industry: SAAS

Designing easy surveys and data collection for Africa.

Overview

Granula is a data collection and analysis tool which enables clients conduct paid surveys and respondents earn points using seamless, agile and lightweight platforms on their web and mobile devices.

I lead the product design for this project and worked with a frontend developer, backend developer and a product owner.

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Background

Survey is an important way by which data can be received from users. Africa has a $2 billion survey industry, however most of the free survey applications in the market are either limited in functionality and too complicated to use.

The solution the Granula web application aimed to provide was an effective customisable way to create surveys, collect and manage data. The primary marketing funnels are B2B and B2C, and the team is an agile one in Nigeria with 3 other countries as a long term goal.

The Problem

The flow structured for the Granula web application is as follows; a client who wants to survey a particular number of users can create an account, after which a login is required. On logging in, payment is made for a plan. After payment, the client has access to create a survey plan using the form builder section.

Under the form builder section, a new form can be created or an existing template is selected and edited. Several tabs can be added and edited as the client may so desire. After creating the perfect form, a link can be generated which is shared with respondents either via email or SMS.

Gathering Insights and Research

There are three classes of users that were considered in this web application; the administrator, the client and the survey respondents. The client can carry out a survey creation action, from which data received from the users can be analysed. The administrator is in charge of how clients management happens through the backend dashboard. The respondents can participate in surveys and earn points.

Similar products I researched that inspired flow and design for this project were TypeForm and Survey Monkey.

Defining Flows and Ideation

Design and Prototypes

Part of the deliverables for this project is branding assets. The style of logo design utilized provides variables for all possible screen sizes in form of a textual logo and a regular icon. The icon itself is a play on the letter G from Granula.

The tool of choice used for the design and prototyping of the mobile app is Figma. A design system was not created for this project as it was time-bound and needed to be shipped in a month. I used a style guide which contained colours, fonts, text fields and buttons.

The Web Application

Designs for the web application allows users to sign up as a client or as a respondent. Respondents only get to see and participate in surveys while customers can create and manage surveys from their dashboards. Four types of survey plans are available on Granula, each one offers different set of survey offerings. The advanced plan gives the client full freedom over the surveys they can create.

Form Creation and Teams

As a client, permissions that can be accessed includes creating new forms, editing, deleting new forms; as well as sending invitations to new team members and survey respondents to participate in surveys they have created.

Forms created can be viewed from the My Forms page. I designed data filters to make it easy to filter the information in the tables. Clients can choose to view data from a particular date range or survey status. The status of the survey/form can be seen, as well as the form name, the date it was created, the number of responses from user, the time left for the survey to be completed and when the last response to the survey was recorded.

Team members can be invited to manage a survey through the Add Member button. Existing members of a team can be reviewed and searched for. Information such as the name, email address, user role, phone number and the invitation status can be viewed from the Members page. Actions can also be taken on the team and its members. The team information can be edited, members roles can be changed and the team can be deleted.

From the main client’s dashboard, invitations can be sent out to other members of the team. I designed interfaces for three invitation types. A team member can be invited via their email address, their phone number or if more than one member is to be added, their information can be uploaded from a CSV or XLS file. A sample template provides a guideline for how the data should be saved in the CSV file. This solution helps to make adding members faster. After the member’s data is provided, an invitation is sent to either their mail or phone number which prompts them to join the Granula team.

Survey Creation

When a member joins a team, they can create a new survey. This takes them to the form creation section of the web application. The major survey types were factored into these designs, such as single choice questions, multiple choice questions, file upload and liker scale. For each survey type, a new question can be created or simply dragged from the left menu options.

A client can create as many questions as their pricing plan would allow. They simply have to click on add new question to add as many questions as is required in the survey being created. When the survey questions have been created, the respondents can be invited or a link to the survey is shared with them. The client can review responses and analysis of the data provided.

Each survey type has specific settings that determine what answers the users can provide. The client can choose for a question to be mandatory or not. A question’s setting can be specified to show a particular range of minimum or maximum data. This feature helps to streamline the answers that users can provide, which makes data collection exactly what is required.

There are actions that can be taken on each question created. Questions that have been created can have their settings adjusted, shared, deleted, duplicated and include a logic jump.

Logic Jump

A logic jump was important for each question created. Why you may wonder? Some responses provided to some questions require a follow up action. If a user selects an option that requires further answers, a logic jump provides the next condition for which another action can be taken. For example; if answer A is selected, jump to question 3. Else if answer B is selected, jump to question 4.

Granula has several form elements and question types, therefore it was necessary to design for each of these elements. The image and media upload design prompts the users to select media from their gallery. The settings for the media type can be adjusted as well.

Other form elements like checkboxes, text, phone number and liker scale have text fields that accommodates their element type. Answers can be randomised, have a set range or the number of options that can be selected.

The Outcome

Data research and survey is a crucial part of projects. Designing the Granula web application required me to understand how data types functioned and the best way to represent them.

A challenge encountered during the course of this project was work structure differences between myself and the team members, which resulted in the initial scope of the project not being fully covered.

Over the span of a month, I was able to design the survey creation web screens which allowed clients to create different survey types, invite members to a team and invite users to a survey. I learned how to design for different data types and the importance of data representation.

There are design decisions that could have been different in regards to fonts and layout. However, the required product functionalities were fully captured.