Vimla Band-aid Data

In this one week design sprint we helped telecommunication company Vimla create innovative solutions before the launch of their new core platform and Vimla 2.0

Background

Vimla is one of the fastest growing telecommunications in Sweden, starting from a small beta in 2014 to a big and lively community in 2020. In this project we helped them

• Find out what trends are emerging among phone users in Sweden and what problems users face in everyday use of their phones.
• Prototype solutions where Vimla, through their new core platform, could solve these user problems and add value to the users in their everyday life.

Target group

Vimla wanted us to focus on younger (15-25 y/o) tech- and online-aware users, but the solution should also be simple enough for grownups to understand.

First round of research

In the beginning we had the hypothesis that users experience problems around data security when using their phones. We went out and asked users in our target group:

• What about technology worries you today in regards to safety?
• What do you do today to protect yourself online?

Second round of research

We decided to let go of our assumptions and go out again with a broader perspective. We asked users to walk us through a day with their phone. Starting with waking up by the alarm in the morning, checking instagram when eating breakfast, buying a bus ticket and so on.
Our next question was:

• What is the most frustrating thing you experience with your phone today?

This time we asked 30 users and a topic that came up a lot was stress around running out of data. People feel like they have poor control over their data and are forced to buy more for an expensive price.

Problem framing

We needed a fast and efficient way to define the problem and form our "How Might We?"-question.
First, we created an empathy map and a storyboard to understand the user needs.
Based on our research we mapped out:

• Who has this problem?
• What is the nature of the problem?
• Why is the problem worth solving?
• Where does this happen?
  

Result of the research

After our research we started ideating on how to answer the question
‍How might we help people feel less stressed when running out of data in inconvenient places?

Worst possible idea

Since we had a whole new mobile core platform to play with we wanted to free our minds from limitations of what was possible before. That's why we started our ideation with brainstorming what the worst possible solution would be. This was a lot of fun and generated a lot of interesting ideas.
One of the solutions we came up with here actually became the one we developed in the end!

Time to get serious

Now it was time to start creating some solutions that we actually believed in. Our process to collaborate and not get stuck in discussions was:

• Individual brainstorming
• "Speed dating", to build on each others ideas
• Dot voting. To decide on which solutions we would go forward with.

And then a little crazy (8)

We did a crazy 8 individually, then we picked our favorite one and developed a bit further. From those developed paper prototypes we chose our favorite features.

Solution

We wanted to create a solution that would make the user feel more in control of their data by having a data controller where the user could budget their data for each month and week, borrow data from the next period or use a small amount of emergency data to help them when running out of data on the go.

User testing

When testing with our users we got feedback that it was an interesting concept, but it was a bit difficult to understand.
We decided that it would be better to focus on one feature and picked the one that got the best user feedback- the emergency data.
However, our users found the name emergency data quite intimidating. They said that it sounds expensive and that they wouldn't press it without knowing what is means.

From this point, we changed the name of this feature to Band-aid data.