Background
The global pandemic led to a severe financial and economic crisis. Many businesses were forced to close for the duration of the strict measures, and some of them - forever. People, in turn, don’t know where to monitor updated information on the opening and closing of businesses they are interested in.
Our US client came to us with the idea of creating a mobile app that would help people find needed local businesses and deals as well as let them suggest the types of businesses they are missing in their neighbourhoods.
It would also serve businesses as a platform for customer attraction, notification of reopening and special deals.
The mobile app will make modern cities closer to the concept of the ‘15-minute city’ - everything you need is located within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. And that means environmentally responsible economic regeneration.
Task
01Design and development of the mobile app for iOS
Task
02Design and development of the admin panel
Design
The design phase is very important in our company, as it allows us to identify the advantages of the product in the market and draw up a long-term development plan.
At this stage, we have determined the following points:
- The app is being launched on the iOS platform because of the predominant number of iPhone users in New York;
- The first version of the product is an MVP, so content management will be done manually;
- While the app is growing and there are an uncertain number of businesses, deals will be shown by month and, when deployed, by day;
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There are 2 types of users:
the User (a regular user looking for new businesses and deals) and the Superuser (a business representative with access to the admin panel); - and, of course, mobile app design is intuitive and interactive for a positive user experience.

Solution
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Sign up and Sign in
As the app runs on iOS, registration and login via Apple ID was chosen as an optimal solution.
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Interactive profile completion
Instead of a standard profile form, we have created a chatbot Talk to Mona for greater UX. Here Mona finds out the user's name, the city and neighbourhood of the city they live in, the type of businesses they are looking for. Later Mona also asks for the user's phone number and date of birth, if they haven't been specified before.
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Tracking of missing businesses
By finding out which businesses the user is missing nearby, the superuser understands what is expected and searched for the most: pharmacies, gyms, cafes, etc. In the admin panel, the superuser can see a list of missing businesses in each area of the city, which can prompt the opening of a new business. .
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Deals and filters
The home screen displays all deals uploaded in the admin panel. They are organised by day of publication and can be selected using filters (city area, type of business).
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Take a deal
In order to take a deal, the user needs to follow a few simple steps:
- choose a suitable deal;
- join a deal;
- use a deal by showing the screen to a business representative.
! It is only possible to join a deal by leaving additional information. If the user has not done it before, the app returns the user to the Talk to Mona screen and asks for a phone number and date of birth.
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User profile
In the profile, users can edit personal information, view deals they joined as well as the ones they’ve already used.
Adding a business and deals
The capabilities of the Superuser (business representative) in the mobile app are much wider, which allows them to perform the following actions in the admin panel:
- add a new city and neighbourhoods;
- add businesses and business types;
- add deals;
- view a list of missing businesses pointed out by the users;
- view information on user participation in deals, which helps to learn about preferences and popularity of particular deals.
