Case Study: WaterStarters App
The WaterStarters Maintenance App: A mobile tool to help local entrepreneurs in Kenya plan and execute maintenance and record information for new water scheme businesses that increase access to safe water in rural areas.
Service and UI/UX design
Project Partner: WaterStarters
Design for Good Team: Adam Murphy, Jince MP, Laleh Omalaki, Roshni Patel
Alliance members involved: Philips, McKinsey
Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
The Challenge
In Kenya, 30-40% of the installed water supply systems are broken, and more than 1 out of 3 people still consume water from unprotected sources. Many water systems are mechanical and will eventually break down if not regularly maintained. WaterStarters, a social enterprise focused on improving access to clean water in developing countries, supports franchisees (community-based organisations and entrepreneurs) to sustainably and independently run their climate-smart water supply solutions to guarantee water availability all year round. To reach a target of 1.5 million people through 600 water schemes, WaterStarters needed a tool built for and from a franchisee’s perspective to support and guide them in performing timely and proper maintenance on the water systems.
The Design
Design for Good began working with WaterStarters to jointly develop a tool built from the franchisees’ perspective to support and guide them in performing maintenance on their own water systems, while at the same time allowing WaterStarters to track performance across all the schemes.
Our team designed a mobile application that aids different types of franchisees – such as local businesses, entrepreneurs or water committees – in running their systems more effectively and reducing the risk of system breakdowns.
For the water systems to run efficiently and not break down, maintenance tasks need to be carried out on site, such as inspecting pipes, seals, leaks and other regular checks. Information was compiled during the initial concept creation based on what a franchisee specifically needs to focus on – including recording information during water scheme maintenance checks and a guide to follow if an issue arises. The design team compared it to being similar to putting together an instruction manual for the franchisee that is delivered through a digital app.
Franchisees can upload images and add voice and text data on a location directly onto the app, and Waterstarters can access any necessary data for compliance checking. Alerts for system repairs will fall into one of two categories, ‘Big’ or ‘Small’, and all data from reports are logged to give WaterStarters and the franchisee a good overview of how the system is running and potentially help anticipate the need for future repairs.
Since many water systems are located in remote areas where there is no internet connection, push notifications are stored within the app so that the franchisee or operations and maintenance officers can still access information about what tasks need to be completed or how to fix an issue. The user can also upload pictures and data whilst offline. When coming into an area with internet connection, data is automatically uploaded.
Built by partner Rubico and Upande (the overall water system enterprise resource planning and remote sensing provider), the WaterStarters Maintenance App was first prototyped with a franchisee in Kibiko, Kajiado County, Kenya, a community of over 5,000 people.
Working together with WaterStarters proved to be a strong collaboration. When the design team and WaterStarters first began creating the app design, they were only working in theory. However, as WaterStarters engaged the franchisees, the app developed further and created a year’s worth of operations knowledge that helped enrich the prototype.
“The WaterStarters Maintenance App will be a game-changer for our team. One of the challenges I have is monitoring what the operators do in the field. Sometimes you can’t be sure of what they are doing without physically going to check. With the app they can now upload photos of maintenance issues, helping with both verification and provision of the necessary support to resolve it.”
– Franchise Manager, Kibiko Water Project
What’s next?
Following the introduction of the WaterStarters Maintenance App in Kibiko, the app will be rolled out to a further 10 water schemes, including in Makueni counties. The ambition is to scale to over 600 water schemes across rural and peri-urban Kenya regions to reach 1.5 million people by 2030.
We will follow up on the impact of the app and how it’s benefitting water schemes in Kenya.
Thank you
We thank Rubico for their assistance in developing, troubleshooting and testing the app. Learn more about them here.
We also thank Upande – the overall water system enterprise resource planning (ERP) and remote sensing provider. We give a special thank you to our team of creatives – Adam Murphy, Jince MP, Laleh Omalaki and Roshni Patel – and WaterStarters for collaborating to fill this need in Kenya.
Support this Project
Learn more about and support WaterStarters here.
Use this Design
For more information about adapting and scaling this product, reach out to info@designforgood.org.
