Nestlé: Vem de Bolo Marketplace
Vem de Bolo was a cake Marketplace powered by Nestlé working as independent startup inside the Nestlé's corporation. The company stopped its activities in July 2022, sunsetting the website after 4 years of operations.
The Context
I worked as a third party contractor in a small tech team for Vem de Bolo for over a year. I was the only product designer on that team, mainly responsible to perform Product Discoveries, user interviews with our B2B audience, document design decision and design mockups for the development team. During that period, we had a heavy support from a Nestlé's PM that would help us prioritize all the work we were performing at that time.
Projects Overview
Couple projects I worked during my time at Nestlé
New Product Registration
Vem de Bolo had a very challenging product registration. Cakes can be highly customized - from the dough, filling to sizes and adds-on - I had to deeply understand how this would impact the product registration. One of my projects during my time there was to design a product registration flow that could accommodate (if not all) most part of those customizations. That also needed to be visually cohesive to interact with individuals with low-tech knowledge.
Transparent Finance
Working with independent bakers in Brazil was very challenging due the maturity level of those baker's business. Some bakers would have a large bakery while other were still cooking at home. Each business had a different view of their financial state. As a marketplace we needed to ensure that all bakeries had the same level of understanding of how much we charged for our services and how to stay compliance with local accounting regulations (from small to larger businesses).
Marketplace Design Refresh
Changing the Product Registration process opened a door for huge opportunities in the B2C side of the business. Now, as we could have a deeper understanding of how much we could customize a cake, we wanted to offer that intelligent to customers looking to buy one. Due that, one of my biggest projects was to refresh the whole marketplace and add advanced filters and search mechanics that could integrate the rationale we implemented for the bakers and offer them to direct customers.
Research Process
In my second week at Nestlé I started conducting user interviews for the Product Registration Project. To do that, I created user interview scripts and presented to Nestlé's PM with the rationale to each one the questions and what I was expecting to accomplish. We also had moderated user testing with the final Product Registration to understand the level of improvement between the current and new version. I refined my research process during the time I was there and consisted in a X steps:
1. Understanding the Problem: performing desk research, having direct conversations with stakeholders and understanding why this problem was relevant to solve;
2. Plan the Research: understand which research methods were better for the outcomes I needed in each project;
3. Present the Research Plan: to stakeholders and other parties involved, making sure they could be empowered internally to defend the work I was doing if needed;
4. Execute the Research: book time with users and make sure they felt comfortable during all the interview or testing time. Also being responsible for taking notes and collecting relevant data;
5. Analyze the Data: understand the data agnostically first and then apply the data in context of use to identify possible opportunities - and share this data directly with stakeholders.
6. Create Demand: understand which problems were worth solving at that point in time and being part of prioritization sessions with Nestlé's PM.
Defining and Prioritizing
What we accomplished
During my time at Nestlé I had weekly meeting with the PM on their side to approach prioritization. I used the Card Sorting methodology to organize the tickets I've created during the research phases we had (and then sorted into smaller categories). I wanted to explore the use of MoSCoW methodology to map the tickets that could enter the next sprints (we had a 15-day sprint time for deliverables). The remaining tickets that couldn't fit the sprint time were then divided between NOW, NEXT and LATER to form a roadmap view of upcoming items.
Case: New Product Registration
The Process and Results
After performing multiple user interviews and identifying the pain points and opportunities we had, I started to plan my design work. I streamlined the process to make it easier, starting with the registration steps and evolving to the registration pages. Due the short turnaround and the existence of a style guide, I used existing components to create the high fidelity mockups. During that process, I had the opportunity to improve some of those existing components and add new ones to their coded design system (which later become another project).
Case: Marketplace Design Refresh
The Process and Results
After identifying the key elements of the product registration of a cake in our platform and went on a deep dive into other competitors marketplaces to understand what they offer and how they offer. I was not only concentrated in the food/delivery industry, but we used Airbnb as a main benchmark - we understood that our complex offering had the same grounds of booking a place, where you not only have to pick location, but the "adds-on" of that property. We successfully implemented the Design Refresh and improved 40% of user experience at that time, reflecting directly on website conversions.
What I've learned?
There's a lot of learnings in the time I spent with Nestlé. First starting with my deep dive in research (and research methods), in how to analyze and interpreted data to inform better design decisions. On the same lines, working as a sole Product Designer in a large product, making sure I was in control of the work and tracking progress of each activity. There were also a lot of learning in the Design System part and collaboration with developers, which was part of my day to day basis.
