Varun R Panambur | Copyrights © 2020

BWSSB Water ControllerCASE STUDY | UX

An application that helps Government(BWSSB) controlling & tracking water Consumption real time.

An application that helps Government(BWSSB) to control & track real time water supply and thus make Bengaluru to overcome the water scarcity.

Role:Product Strategy, User Research, Interaction, Visual design, Prototyping.

Solution:Web and Mobile App

OverviewOverview

Water Controller is a Pilot project(deploying for 2 Sectors) associated with B.PAC that helps Government(BWSSB) tracking water Consumption, Leakage and controlling it. 

Background

CustomerMy client, who is a CEO of a small home run startup which had got the approval from the Government to implement the pilot project for ~80 houses(2 wards) as first phase.

Deliverables and Process

Research & Observation

• Stakeholder interview

• Domain Research

• Stakeholder mapping

• User Interview

Define

• Persona

• User Journey

• Bull’s Eye Diagram

• Problem Statement

• User flow

Design

• Napkin Sketches

• Wireframe

• Moodboard

• Visual Design

Ask & Project Scope• UX Research

• User Flow

• Visual Design

• Prototyping

• Collaboration with Developers

Early Challenges• A lot of Hardware and Jargons involved to understand the whole requirement as it was an IOT project.

• Lot of effort to make client understand how the UX process works!

Reference by client

Ask & Project Scope

Stakeholder interviewStakeholder interview

My process started with the client kickoff meeting. Here I aimed to understand the client goals as thoroughly as I could in order to maximize satisfaction.

Background

Primary focus of my client is to help BWSSB to monitor water flow in network so as to satisfy consumer demand and at the same time detect log or record illegal/leakage flows.

Started with basic & open ended questions and continued until the future business model. This helped to get insight & Scope of the project(including jazzy words of embedded system & Hydraulic calculation 🙂)

Take away

• Officers(Covered in this pilot test)

• Contract Labours

Persona Identified

Domain ResearchDomain ResearchAfter having a detailed interview with a couple of stakeholders, did some research to familiarise the domain so that I can get into their shoes. In order to understand the importance of the solution and to provide an adequate solution, I wanted to understand what are the causes of non-adherence to water scarcity. 

• As much as 49% of the water supplied to the city is what is called ‘non-revenue water' or 'unaccounted for water' – water lost in

distribution. Former BWSSB chairman, T M Vijaybhaskar, admitted to a loss in 2016

• Widespread leaks, unauthorised water connections and water theft across Bengaluru is the another problem government could not tackle.

Some key findings:

Screenshot from various articles

Stakeholder mappingStakeholder mappingAs there were too many stakeholders involved, identified and Assessed the key Stakeholder keeping long-term objectives in mind which helped me to engage with them effectively.

Raghavendra High: Technical Knowledge, Requirement

High: Directly affected by company’s activity

Medium: Engages with all the teamsMedium: High: Very influencer

as he is one of the key persons

High: Decision maker, Clear about product

MECON(I), IIT - Chennai

Rajendra Medium: Team managements, Coordination

Medium: Indirectly affected by company’s activity

High: Proactive, Engages with all the teams

Medium: Not very influencer

Low: No Necessity

B.E

Prasad High: System Architect, Technical Knowledge

Medium: Indirectly affected by company’s activity

Low: Not much other than dev team

Medium: Not very influencer

Low: No Necessity

B.E, M.Tech

Parthasarathy High: Technical Knowledge

High: Directly affected by company’s activity

Low: Not much Engaged

High: Very influencer as he is one of the key persons

High: Decision maker

CTO - B.PAC

Contribution Legitimacy Willingness to Engage Influence Necessity of InvolvementStakeholder

User InterviewUser InterviewAs this was a pilot project which was pitched for a Government, it was difficult to contact the actual user for interview. But after convincing my client got a short window of 30 mins each to talk with 2 key persons who is in charge of BWSSB department.

I Started with the brief and questions was basically open ended questions and more towards prob he is facing in day to day life.

I was able to identify “I” statements that helped me to step into the user’s shoes and

attempt to understand their motivations, goals and pain points.

Some key findings:

• I know we are having account of 50% water supply only, it is the biggest challenge leading to water scarcity as there is no automated

system to detect illegal/leakage flows.

• I don’t get to monitor water supply realtime. Currently I have to rely on metered reports only. 

• Controlling of water valves should be followed up with labours and have to constantly communicate with respected officers.

PersonaPersonaWith the help of user research it was easy to draw the conclusion about user and helped me to keep the user at the centre of the design process. As per my client’s request, cannot disclose the identity and position of the persona.

Anand is working as a chief Engineer at BWSSB Bangalore. He is an eminent and reputed officer who is himself considered as a strong believer of hardworking and takes his professional work very seriously. He makes sure that all his subordinates updates him on weekly basis and tries to deliver the best service, but sometimes wonders if that is enough as there are still lot of unaccounted works.

Bio

Goal•To setup hassle free system at work

•Monitor and fulfil water demand more effectively

•Wants to setup advance system to log water supply and calculations.

Frustration•No solution to detect illegal/leakage flows

•Difficult to manage manual reporting

•Difficult to monitor system as he has to rely on subordinates for any information

•Concerned as the water demand is increasing day by day

•Dissatisfied with the performance as he couldn’t control Non Revenue Water

I know we are having account of 50% water supply only, it is the biggest

challenge leading to water scarcity as there is no automated system to

detect illegal/leakage flows.

Anand

Banglore

Executive

Age 57

User JourneyUser JourneyWith the research data, Journey map (as is) was done to understand the complete sum of experience of the user.

Bull’s Eye DiagramBull’s Eye DiagramAfter the interview with the engineers, I continued my research with Bull’s eye diagram to prioritize the critical needs of the user. So with the help of Bull’s eye diagram, I was able to consider what’s critical, what’s important, and what’s merely peripheral.

Additionally, I involved the stakeholders as it was critical to consider the business and hardware requirements.

Problem StatementProblem Statement

Unaccounted water is a growing concern to government. To date, system for monitoring of illegal/leakage water flow does not exits. By

listing out the main pain points, I was able to draw a conclusion as problem statement.

• Difficult to keep track of water supplies

• Hard to manage manual reports

• Difficult to detect pipebreak down

• Tracking illegal water connections

How might we enable a system to monitor

water flow in network and at the same time

record illegal/leakage flows so that the

water scarcity can be minimised.

User FlowUser FlowAs this was a pilot project, user flow helped to clearly position the working context and set the right scope of work based on user

needs and business demand.

Napkin sketchesNapkin sketchesAfter understanding of requirement listed the

features that could satisfy users need. Once this

was discussed with stakeholders got finalised the

features for pilot run, started napkin sketches with

mobile first approach. 

I did two proposal and validated iteratively. This

approach helped me to focus on putting out a core

function and layering the extras incrementally for

higher resolutions.

WireframeWireframeWith iterative approach and getting feedback from the stakeholders(and user) , I finalised the concept where I started creating

wireframe to outline interaction pattern, content hierarchy and workflow on user interface.

Since my focus was on structure, not the visual and emotional perception of the details, it was easy for stakeholders to visualize and

digest from early on without getting bogged down in the details.

Mood-BoardMood-Board

Design AestheticDesign AestheticThe design aesthetic is made keeping in mind simplicity and ease of use and at the same time giving delightful experience to the user.

Color

Iconography

Aa Aa Aa

Typography - Open Sans

Icon Illustration

Visual DesignVisual Design

The UI design was kept simple and neat with minimal graphical elements to enable minimal and effective Visual Appeal.

Visual Design - WebVisual Design - Web

Usability FeedbackUsability FeedbackAlong with stakeholder Raghavendra & Rajendra, I presented Invision prototype to Mr Anand

Gowda(Executive). The main goal of this usability feedback is to uncover the usability issues

and also to find out how well the product is being adapted. Assigned with few general tasks &

Specific tasks, we were able to discover the issues. By reiterating, I redefined and fixed the

discovered findings.

Some key findings:

• Some of the Icons were too generic to grasp at first glance. Issue: #Learnability #Memorability

• Needs easy access to Map. Issue: #Efficiency

• Needs quick access to recently viewed wards. Issue: #Efficiency

TakeawayTakeaway

I found this pilot project a helpful way for advancing my UX skills. I’m amazed by how

much I’ve learned. My biggest takeaway is to learn how user research & ideation technics

can be used in early stage of any projects having limited information/resource, which

helped me in spend time empathising with user . 

I expect to apply everything I learned to my current career and onward. 🚀Although

this was just a moment into UX, the skills I will take away will be very useful for my

future projects.