UX CASE STUDY · 2026

VoltaBattery

Most apps are built for people who already know what they want. Volta was built for the person whose car won't start at 8pm — who doesn't know their battery model, doesn't speak English, and just needs help. Now.

Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
3 months · Solo project
Deliverables
Website · WhatsApp AI · Admin
Tools
Figma · Research · Prototyping
4
User types with completely different needs and emotional states
3
Digital surfaces designed from scratch — one database
4
Languages supported in WhatsApp interface
2
Phase vision — from one shop to hyperlocal platform
Context

A local battery shop drowning in support calls

Sri Raghavendra Battery Point is a battery distributor in Jayanagar, Bangalore. They sell automobile batteries (car, bike, inverter) from multiple brands. Every customer question — "Do you have X battery?", "How much?", "Where are you located?" — comes as a phone call. The owner handles 30-50 calls daily, often repeating the same information.

Small business
Phone-dependent
Multilingual customers
Emergency services
Battery shop storefront
The Problem

No online presence.
No self-service.
Just endless phone calls.

The business had no digital footprint. Customers couldn't check prices or availability on their own. Every enquiry required a phone call — disrupting operations, creating wait times, and making it impossible for the owner to focus on in-store customers.

No online discovery
Potential customers couldn't find the shop online. No website, no Google presence, no way to browse inventory.
Phone-only support
Every customer interaction required a phone call. Repetitive questions consumed hours daily.
No 24/7 availability
Customers with emergencies at night had no way to get help or information.
Language barriers
Customers spoke Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, English. Manual support struggled with regional language queries.
Manual price updates
When battery prices changed, the owner had to update customers manually — no system to sync data.
Lost emergency leads
Customers with dead batteries often called competitors because they couldn't reach the shop after hours.
"I spend half my day answering the same questions. Do you have this battery? How much? Where are you? I need a system that answers for me."
Research Methodology

Understanding the problem space through primary and secondary research

Before jumping to solutions, I conducted comprehensive research to understand the battery retail industry, small business digital transformation challenges, and customer behavior patterns. This dual approach — combining primary user research with secondary industry research — ensured every design decision was grounded in real insights.

Primary Research
Direct user insights
Conducted firsthand research to gather qualitative and quantitative data directly from the shop owner, customers, and observing real interactions. This helped identify specific pain points, user behaviors, and business constraints.
Shop owner interviews — 3 in-depth sessions covering business operations, customer patterns, and pain points
Live call observation — Monitored 20+ customer support calls to understand query patterns and emotional states
Customer intercept interviews — Spoke with 8 customers at the shop to understand their needs and frustrations
Contextual inquiry — Spent time at the shop observing workflows, customer interactions, and operational challenges
Secondary Research
Industry & market analysis
Analyzed existing research, industry reports, and case studies to understand broader market trends, digital transformation patterns, and validated design approaches. This provided context beyond the single business.
Industry reports — Analyzed digital transformation statistics showing small businesses (under 100 employees) are 2.7x more successful than enterprises
ROI benchmarks — Studied manufacturing and retail digital transformation projects achieving 30-35% average ROI within 12-18 months
Competitive analysis — Reviewed WhatsApp Business API implementations, multilingual chatbots, and emergency service UX patterns
Market research — Studied battery industry trends, e-commerce adoption patterns in Bangalore, and hyperlocal commerce platforms
User Research

Four archetypes.
Four different realities.

Through interviews with the shop owner and observation of 20+ live customer calls, four user archetypes emerged — each defined not just by what they want, but by what they can't easily do. Their literacy levels, languages, and emotional states differ so completely that a single interface couldn't serve them all.

01
THE PLANNER · 40%
Rajesh researching battery options on his laptop
RESEARCHING · SATURDAY

"Cross-check Rajesh"

Rajesh Kumar · 42

RoleIT manager
LocationJayanagar, Bangalore
VehicleMaruti Swift 2020
SpeaksEnglish · Hindi
Tech-savviness
High · researches everything online
A DAY IN THE LIFE

It's a Saturday morning and Rajesh has noticed his car cranking slower for the past two weeks. He pulls up three browser tabs — Amaron's website, Exide's, and a comparison forum — and starts a spreadsheet to track price, warranty, and Ah ratings. The last thing he wants to do is call a shop and have someone read prices to him over the phone.

↑ GOALS
  • Compare battery options side by side
  • Verify prices and warranty terms
  • Find the exact fit for his Swift
↓ FRUSTRATIONS
  • Can't browse without calling
  • No price transparency online
  • Unclear which battery actually fits
DESIGN SOLVES → Browsable website Price comparison Spec sheets
02
THE PANICKER · 25%
Priya stressed in her car at night
PARKING LOT · 8:42 PM

"Stranded Priya"

Priya Sharma · 29

RoleMarketing exec
LocationIndiranagar, Bangalore
VehicleHyundai i20 2019
SpeaksEnglish · Hindi
Tech-savviness
High · but useless when panicking
A DAY IN THE LIFE

It's 8:42 PM and Priya is in an underground parking lot after a late client dinner. Her car cranks once, then clicks, then nothing — and she doesn't have her father's number, the shop's number, or any roadside assistance saved. She opens WhatsApp because it's the only app she trusts under stress, and types four words: "my car won't start."

↑ GOALS
  • Get immediate, confirmed help
  • Share her exact location effortlessly
  • Trust that someone is actually coming
↓ FRUSTRATIONS
  • Can't explain her location clearly
  • Doesn't want to talk to anyone
  • No fallback when the shop is closed
DESIGN SOLVES → Emergency CTA in chat Live location share Technician tracking
03
THE VOICE-FIRST · 20%
Kamala with her scooter in the Jayanagar market
MARKET RUN · 5 AM

"Auntie Kamala"

Kamala Bai · 58

RoleTea stall owner
LocationJayanagar 4th block
VehicleHonda Activa
SpeaksKannada only
Tech-savviness
Low · uses voice notes, not text
A DAY IN THE LIFE

Kamala has been running her chai stall since 1991 and her Activa is how she gets to the market every morning at 5 AM. The scooter wouldn't start today, so she asked her neighbour's son to look — he tells her the battery needs replacing but she'll need to call the shop herself. Her son is in Mysore, she can't read the English signboards, and the idea of typing into a phone makes her hand her glasses to whoever is nearest.

↑ GOALS
  • Replace her scooter battery today
  • Be helped in Kannada, not Hindi
  • Avoid asking strangers for help
↓ FRUSTRATIONS
  • Cannot read English text at all
  • Low literacy even in Kannada
  • Intimidated by typed forms and apps
DESIGN SOLVES → Auto-play voice greeting Numbered language picker Native-script buttons
04
THE CLUELESS · 15%
Arjun calling for help with his car hood open
HOOD OPEN · NO IDEA

"Confused Arjun"

Arjun M. · 32

RoleSoftware engineer
LocationHSR Layout, Bangalore
VehicleInherited 2016 Maruti
SpeaksEnglish (fluent)
Tech-savviness
Expert · but zero car knowledge
A DAY IN THE LIFE

Arjun inherited his father's 8-year-old Maruti six months ago and has been intermittently struggling to start it on cold mornings. He's googled "car not starting" enough times to know it's probably the battery, but every search result demands specs he doesn't have — "65Ah DIN65L," "CCA rating," "vehicle compatibility." He opens the hood for the first time in his life, takes a slightly tilted photo of the battery, and hopes someone — or something — can read the label for him.

↑ GOALS
  • Identify his current battery without jargon
  • Get a plain-language replacement option
  • Avoid being upsold by anyone
↓ FRUSTRATIONS
  • Doesn't know car model details
  • Doesn't know any battery brand
  • Specs feel like a foreign language
DESIGN SOLVES → Photo battery detection Branching scenarios Plain-language results
Solution Strategy

One database.
Three surfaces.
Every user served.

Instead of designing one compromised product, I created three purpose-built interfaces — each optimized for a specific user type and use case. All three pull from the same database, so when the owner updates a price once, it syncs everywhere.

For Planners + Walk-ins
Customer Website
Battery finder, service info, location map, opening hours. For customers who want to browse and research before committing.
For Quick Queries + Emergencies
WhatsApp AI Assistant
Instant answers in 4 languages. Handles price queries, photo-based battery detection, emergency jumpstart booking, and location sharing.
For Shop Owner
Admin Dashboard
Price editor, enquiry log, lead tracking. Update battery prices once — changes sync to website and WhatsApp instantly.
Information Architecture

System thinking before screen thinking

The most important design decision wasn't visual — it was architectural. Three surfaces, one shared database. This structure enables Phase 2 (multi-shop platform) without rebuilding from scratch.

Website
Battery Finder
Services
Location
Contact
WhatsApp AI
Price Inquiry
Photo Detect
Emergency
4 Languages
Admin Tool
Price Editor
Inventory
Enquiries
Analytics
Shared Database
Battery inventory · Pricing · Availability · Shop info · All surfaces sync in real-time
SURFACE 01
For Rajesh and his kind · the surface that answers before he calls

The customer website —
where trust is built in seconds

Most local battery shops don't have a website. The ones that do treat it like a phonebook listing — name, address, phone number. SRB needed something that did real work: help a customer find the exact battery for their car, surface prices transparently, and route them to WhatsApp or a phone call without friction. Built mobile-first, because nobody is researching batteries on a laptop.

CORE FLOW
Home → Results
SRB Battery home screen with vehicle finder form
01 · HOME
SRB Battery results screen showing matched batteries
02 · RESULTS
THE TWO-STEP PROMISE

Tell us your vehicle. See matching batteries.

No registration, no log-in, no detail pages buried two clicks deep. The customer arrives knowing only their car, leaves knowing exactly which battery fits — with prices, warranty, and a WhatsApp button on every option.

03 · BEYOND THE SALE

More than just batteries

SRB doesn't just sell batteries — they fit them, jumpstart cars, run free health checks, and top up distilled water. The services page surfaces what was previously locked inside the shop owner's head and word-of-mouth.

Free vs. charged services, marked upfront"Fitment: Free (only for batteries purchased from us)" — no hidden conditions surfaced at checkout.
Emergency CTA always visibleThe dark "Car won't start?" card sits at the bottom of the screen, catching the panicker before she leaves.
Persistent bottom navHome, Services, WhatsApp, Emergency, Find us — five taps, all the customer ever needs.
SRB Battery services page with fitment, jumpstart, and emergency CTA

The four bets that shaped this surface

Designing for a local shop's customer is different from designing for a SaaS product. The interface had to feel familiar, trustworthy, and forgiving — for users who might be doing this once every five years.

Vehicle-first, not brand-first
Customers know their car. They don't know batteries. The funnel starts where their certainty lives.
WhatsApp as an exit, not a fallback
Every screen has a green CTA to chat — because some customers will always prefer to talk, and that's fine.
Price upfront, no "request a quote"
Hidden prices break trust before the customer even reaches the shop. Every number is GST-inclusive.
Emergency, always one tap away
The dark "Car won't start?" card and bottom-nav Emergency tab catch Priya before she gives up and Googles.
SRB Battery filter screen on an art-directed colored background
ART DIRECTION
Filtering and sorting designed to feel like Amazon or Flipkart — patterns customers already know, applied to a category they don't.
SRB Battery filter screen in a customer's hands
IN HAND
Every CTA sits in the thumb zone. The whole flow finishes before a traffic light turns green.
IN CONTEXT

Designed for one hand,
one minute, one decision.

No registration. No log-in. No friction between curiosity and contact. Just a customer, their vehicle, and the right battery — in under a minute.

WhatsApp AI —
where the customer already is

Asking someone to download an app is friction. Asking them to open WhatsApp is muscle memory. So the AI lives where 400 million Indians already chat — speaks four languages, plays a voice greeting for non-readers, and lets users press a number to choose their language.

SURFACE 03
For the Shop Owner · the surface that powers the other two

The admin tool —
where one edit reaches everywhere

The shop owner is the only admin user. He doesn't read English fluently, doesn't have time for training, and updates prices between customer calls. So the admin tool had to feel less like a CMS and more like a control panel — every action visible, every change traceable, nothing buried in nested menus.

PRIMARY VIEW · DASHBOARD
Volta Admin Dashboard
01 · DASHBOARD
Today at a glance
The owner opens the admin tool maybe four times a day. So the dashboard has to answer his only three questions in one screen: What's happening right now? What needs me? What did the AI handle without me?
Live emergencies surfaced first — the dark callout makes them impossible to miss
Multilingual queries shown in original script — Kannada, Hindi, Tamil — so the owner sees what customers actually wrote
Calls-saved as the headline metric — the one number that justifies the whole product
INVENTORY & PRICING
Volta Admin Inventory & Pricing
02 · CATALOG
Edit once. Sync everywhere.
Inline price editing with a persistent save bar that names the consequence — "syncs to website and WhatsApp on save." No dialog buried two clicks deep.
DESIGN BET
ENQUIRIES & LEADS
Volta Admin Enquiries & Leads
03 · INBOX
The human moments
AI handles 78% silently. The owner sees only what needs him — with full context already attached. Emergencies pinned to the top with distance and live status.
AI-FIRST
ANALYTICS
Volta Admin Analytics
04 · INSIGHTS
Numbers a shop owner actually wants
Not vanity charts. Calls saved, response time, language breakdown, top-selling SKUs. Each metric maps to a decision he can make next week — order more stock, hire Tamil support, push Saturday inventory.
JOBS-TO-BE-DONE
DESIGN RATIONALE

Most admin tools are built for analysts. This one was built for a man who answers his own phone.

Every decision — the dark sidebar that recedes, the serif display type that signals authority not enterprise-blandness, the green that ties back to the WhatsApp brand, the single sticky save bar — comes from one constraint: the owner has 30 seconds between customers.

3
Clicks to update a price
From "I need to change something" to "it's live everywhere" — open inventory, edit cell, save & sync.
0
Settings menus to learn
No tabs within tabs. Every screen does one job, and the next action is always visible.
78%
Of enquiries auto-handled
The admin tool exists for the 22% that need a human — and protects the owner from the rest.
Service Portfolio

Professional battery services

From installation to emergency support, every service is designed for reliability and customer convenience.

Battery installation service

Installation & Repair

Professional battery installation, on-site repairs, and emergency jumpstart support with transparent pricing.

Commercial battery services

Commercial Fleet Services

Dedicated support for commercial vehicles, including bulk orders, fleet maintenance contracts, and priority response.

Battery charging services

Testing & Diagnostics

Complete battery health diagnostics, professional charging, and performance testing to extend battery life.

Differentiators

What makes Volta different

Most battery retailers still rely on phone calls or have basic e-commerce websites. Volta was designed from the ground up to serve diverse user needs with technology that actually helps.

Other battery shops
List all brands alphabetically
Generic product catalogs with no personalization or guidance. Customers must know exactly what they're looking for.
Volta approach
Ask what vehicle you drive
Vehicle-first battery finder that shows compatible options from any brand in the inventory, with clear comparisons and recommendations.
✓ Brand-agnostic system supports unlimited manufacturers
Other battery shops
English-only websites
Exclude customers who don't speak English fluently. No support for regional languages.
Volta approach
4 languages with context memory
Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, English. WhatsApp AI remembers language preference across sessions.
✓ Designed for Bangalore's multilingual customer base
Other battery shops
"Call us for emergencies"
No digital emergency support. Customers must find phone numbers and explain situations verbally.
Volta approach
One-tap emergency mode
Dedicated emergency flow with location auto-detect, arrival time estimates, and real-time tracking.
✓ Reduces emergency response coordination from 10+ min to under 2 min
Business Impact

Projected ROI and business transformation

Based on digital transformation research across small businesses and manufacturing sectors, similar-scale implementations achieve measurable returns within 12-18 months. Here's what Volta is designed to deliver:

40%
Reduction in phone support time
WhatsApp AI and self-service website handle repetitive queries, freeing the owner to focus on in-store customers and complex cases.
24/7
Customer availability
Digital surfaces enable customers to check prices, browse inventory, and book emergency services outside business hours — capturing previously lost leads.
60%
Faster price updates
Centralized admin dashboard syncs pricing across all surfaces instantly, eliminating manual updates and reducing errors.
3x
Emergency response efficiency
Structured emergency flow with automated location detection reduces coordination time from 10+ minutes to under 2 minutes per case.
30%
Expected revenue increase
Based on small business digital transformation benchmarks, improved customer experience and 24/7 availability typically drive 25-35% revenue growth within 12-18 months.
12-18mo
ROI timeline
Industry research shows small businesses (under 100 employees) achieve positive ROI within 12-18 months, with 2.7x higher success rates than enterprise transformations.
Product Vision

Built for one shop today.
Designed for every street tomorrow.

Phase 1 gives one shop owner a complete digital presence. Phase 2 turns that into a hyperlocal commercial platform — connecting customers to verified battery dealers across any city, in their language, in their moment of need.

1
Phase 1 · Current
One shop.
Complete digital presence.
Built for a single battery distributor in Jayanagar. The owner is the only admin user. All three surfaces serve his customers and replace his phone calls.
Customer website — battery finder, services, find us
WhatsApp AI — multilingual, photo detection, emergency
Admin tool — price editor, enquiry log, lead tracking
One database — price changes sync across all surfaces
Designed · Ready for development
2
Phase 2 · Hyperlocal commercial
Any city.
Every battery shop on the map.
Volta becomes a hyperlocal discovery platform. Customers search for a battery — they see nearby verified dealers with real-time pricing, availability, and ratings. Think Dunzo for batteries. Not just one shop. Every shop in the neighbourhood.
Shop discovery — nearest verified dealer, live availability
Ratings and trust — compare shops, not just batteries
Multi-shop admin — each owner manages their own inventory
Emergency network — nearest jumpstart partner dispatched
Dealer onboarding — verified shops join as registered partners
Concept stage · Not yet designed
Design Process

Research first. Always.

Every decision traces back to a real user insight or business constraint. Nothing was designed without first understanding who needed it and why — and nothing was assumed.

01
Research
Primary: Shop owner interviews, live call observation, customer intercepts. Secondary: Industry reports, digital transformation benchmarks, competitive analysis. 4 distinct user types identified.
02
IA + Flows
User-first information architecture. Three surfaces, one database. Every interaction and edge case mapped before wireframing began.
03
Wireframes
Core screens wireframed for website, WhatsApp flows, and admin dashboard. All interactions, filter states, and conversational edge cases designed.
04
UI Design
DM Sans design system. Mobile-first approach. Consistent visual language across all three surfaces with accessibility considerations.
05
Conversation Design
WhatsApp flows designed in 4 languages. Conversation trees handle ambiguous input, urgency detection, photo analysis, and human escalation paths.
Reflections

What Volta taught me

Design for the majority, not the average
Four fundamentally different users. One compromised product would have served none of them. Separate surfaces, each purpose-built — not one product stretched thin.
Language is not accessibility — it is the UX
Designing in Kannada wasn't an add-on. It was the primary experience for the majority of customers. Every label, CTA, and error message had to work in four languages.
Emergency is a separate design problem
A customer whose car won't start doesn't need a battery finder. They need a phone number, a location check, and a confirmation that someone is coming. That is a completely different UX.
One database, three surfaces
The most important system decision. Owner edits a price once — it updates everywhere. Engineer builds the logic once. The architecture unlocks Phase 2 without rebuilding from scratch.
Benchmark against the real competitor
The real competitor isn't Amaron's website. It's the phone call. Every design decision was measured against one question: is this faster and clearer than just calling?
AI should guide, not replace
Traditional chatbots fail with ambiguity. Volta's AI understands incomplete input, adapts tone based on urgency, and always offers a path to a human. Knowing when not to automate matters.