Manzl: running workforce housingat scale, validated before built.
A role-based admin platform and an Android resident app for India's migrant workforce.
Altstar
Research → Design
4 weeks → UAT
Web + Android
They'd built the ecosystem. They needed to run it.
Altstar already had housing, food, transport and services for migrant workers in place. They asked for a role-based admin web app and a worker mobile app to coordinate a workforce that was "highly fragmented and difficult to coordinate."
Were we solving real problems, or designing against assumptions?
No ground validationNobody had spoken to a worker or operator.
An unknown userDid workers even use smartphones?
An over-built feature setElegant in a deck, wrong for low-literacy users.
The call: stop, and validate before we scale. Altstar's leadership agreed.
The field contradicted the brief.
Site visits and phone interviews across 7 cohorts, plus a competitor scan (Civeo, Tikaana, ARHCS) that showed transport and meals were the real differentiators in industrial housing.
Blue-collar workers
Supervisors & foremen
Facility managers
Business owners
HR managers
Vendor managers
Altstar stakeholders
"What we require is a place that they can lie down, with common bathroom/washroom facilities. All other requirements are additions…"
Workers needA clean place to sleep, working washrooms, drinking water, decent food, fair wages.
Managers struggle withManual attendance, leave and reporting. "Next-day prep depends on memory."
Digital habitsWhatsApp, yes. Service apps, no. Calls over forms, cash over UPI.
A 2-day workshop that made the client co-author the direction.
Day 1 · Mapping the presentAs-Is journeys for workers and managers. Altstar added their own pain points and we defined the worker MVP.
Day 2 · Designing the futureTo-Be journeys, then a group exercise to prioritise features into a 3-6-9 month roadmap.
One discipline: need over nice-to-have.
WhatsApp first, not an appWorkers trusted WhatsApp and little else. A chatbot meant zero install and zero learning curve.
Then one native app that scalesGrey-collar workers needed more. After a second interview round: one app for blue- and grey-collar, with WhatsApp logic as its simplest tier.
Cut most of the briefThe decision I'm proudest of. Every cut feature would have been built, maintained and ignored.
A role-based platform, not a dashboardTenants and facility managers each see their slice: who's in, what's broken, what needs a decision now. Responsive, because managers were rarely at a desk.
Brief proposedPersonal finance hubHealth records & appointmentsGamified trainingAmenity bookingLive GPS bus tracking
MVP shippedMeal schedule + opt-outTransport timingsSupport ticketsNotificationsVisitor & parcel pre-approval
What we designed
Altstar walked away building the right thing.
Android resident appBridges blue- and grey-collar users.
Role-based web appManual firefighting to real-time monitoring.
3-6-9 month roadmapOwned by the client, not imposed.
Where AI helped
Refining interview questionnaires
Synthesising recorded sessions
Rapid UI during the workshop
Edge cases & UX writing
What I took away
01Observation beats assumption, especially for users unlike you.
02Co-creation isn't a nicety, it's how you kill rework.
03An MVP earns adoption when it maps to real needs, not feature ambition.
02 · Healthcare · Mobile appMedEasy