YBP -
A Mobile-first PWA and Program Journey
YBP or Youth Business Projects is a real-world experiential program designed to offer students the experience of going through the entrepreneurial journey from scratch while still in school (Grade 11). The initiative is run in 4 states, in collaboration with their respective state governments in government schools. The program consists of an in-class curriculum, with chatbot and digital (app) assistance under contextual, state selected program names in each state.
The YBP Program
Overview of the Program
YBP is split in two phases : 1. Pre-Seed Money and 2. Post-Seed Money. Both phases follow a 3 prong approach :
Phase 1
Every week, students are required to complete some activities like :
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Coming up with business ideas
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Forming a team
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Conducting Market Surveys, understanding the market landscape
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Finalising a business idea
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Applying for seed money
The Whatsapp bot is used for communication, instructions and submitting proof of activity.
Phase 2
After receiving the seed money to apply their plans into motion, students are required to complete activities like :
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Understanding their business competition
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Building a prototype of their finalised idea
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Formulating a sales pitch
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Taking and applying customer feedback
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Submit their business accounts (ledger style)
Design Input for the Program
The two major Design Inputs in the program were :
1. The Progressive Web App (PWA) and
2. The visual material for the Whatsapp Chatbot
The Progressive Web App
YBP has its own PWA that is meant to support the program for its primary users ie Teachers and Students; and also its secondary users ie Government Officials, Principals, and Trainers. It is the most design heavy aspect of YBP.
Features
The PWA had several features, like
Content Repository
Idea Bank
The Content Repository is an easy way for students to access all information related to the activities of the week - for every week of the program. It sources its material from Youtube and also includes videos made by Udhyam. Students can rate the videos based on their usefullness and also otherwise interact with it by sharing, saving etc.
The Idea Bank is a collection of business ideas that students had come up with over the years of YBP's existence - categorised by sector or areas of work. Similar to the Content Repository, students can interact with these ideas when they interest them, and also share / save them.
Team Formation
Team Evaluation
Team Formation is a simplified way of registering student teams - with all the team members, name, idea category, team lead etc. A simplified team formation process was the gap that gave way to the existence of the PWA.
Team Evaluation is a way for teachers to provide their inputs on student submissions and also the team's journey and efforts throughout the program
Other recent features include Portfolios and Leaderboards to engage students further.
The Whatsapp Chatbot
The Whatsapp Chatbot is the secondary touchpoint with students and primary mode of communication between the program and the users - Teachers and Students. Several Program functions and milestones are completed on Whatsapp through chats, images and videos. Conversation Design for YBP was significantly influenced by Udhyam's previous collaboration - FunDoo.
The branding and identity of the PWA changes with each state, but the app colours and design remain consistent across all domains.
Ankuram - Telangana
Tejasvi - Madhya Pradesh
Business Blasters - Punjab
The Brand
Below is a snapshot of the iteration + flow of one part of the app (The Sign Up)
The Iteration
Softwares :
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Canva
Figma
Google Suite
Procreate
Roles and Skills :
Illustration
UX Writing
Graphic Design
Conversation Design
User Research
UI / UX
Logo Design
Usability Testing
Thoughts : This is the longest project I've worked on, spanning well over a year. It has also been the largest project in terms of scale, teams, and user groups. A lot of the work I did previously in FunDoo was used in this this project which felt like I was preparing for this in all my time in FunDoo. The PWA itself started off as a vague idea for a one page website - and has lent itself to what it is now.
It also taught me the importance of not putting an entire project on one Figma page :P
