After raising around $100 million from investors in 2015, the startup Tuhu has established itself as the leader of Chinese automobile after-sales products and services. Consumers use the Tuhu app (available on both Android and iOS) and website to find needed parts for their cars and auto body shops to make the installations. Tuhu offers same- or next-day delivery guarantees for all of its customers (over five million so far) across Mainland China. With such a widespread network, Tuhu cannot afford any technological glitches or setbacks—and that’s why they turned to Sympli.
Tuhu is all about saving time for their customers—and we’re all about saving time and finding efficiencies for Tuhu. To get a sense of how Sympli has helped one of the leading global startups continue to grow their business, we discussed Tuhu’s adoption of Sympli with the startup’s product director, Dengjia Sun.
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Name: Dengjia Sun, Product Director Company: Tuhu Product Design Team Size: 14 product managers, 5 UI designers, dozens of engineers Customer Since: January 2016 |
Q. How long have you been using Sympli?
A. I discovered Sympli in January 2016. After playing around with it for a while, I realized it was the efficient tool we needed to improve our work processes. Even when Sympli was still in beta stage, I invited my colleagues to start using it.
Q. What do you like about it?
A. Sympli saves time for our designers by improving how we measure, cut, and slice assets for every platform.
“Even if some aspect of the design changes after it is uploaded initially, the designer can just re-upload the updated version using Sympli to compare the differences between the original and the new prototype.”
Q. What design and development platforms do you use?
A. Our UI designers mostly work with Sketch. Our iOS engineers use Xcode and Android engineers use Android studio.
Q. How is the design and development team set up?
A. We have 14 product managers, five UI designers, and dozens of engineers who use both Android and iOS for their front-end and back-end development.
Q: What does your overall workflow look like?
A. First, the product manager will develop the entire product process, prepare the functional specifications, and draw low-fidelity prototypes, often using Axure and Modao.cc. Next, UI designers draw high-fidelity prototypes using Sketch. Then we use Sympli to upload the prototype and share it with the engineers. Sympli makes it easy to see the label information and download the required assets. Even if some aspect of the design changes after it is uploaded initially, the designer can just re-upload the updated version using Sympli to compare the differences between the original and the new prototype.
"Sympli has helped us add efficiency and precision to our workflow."
Q. What was the workflow like before Sympli?
A. Sympli has helped us add efficiency and precision to our workflow. Before we started to use Sympli, we had to measure assets by hand. There were some tools to help us automate measurements, but it was difficult to convert between px and pt.
Q. Would you say there is an optimal way to use Sympli?
A. Well, the optimal way to use Sympli is to start using it right away.
Q. Have you used Sympli to produce any released products?
A. The Tuhu app, both on Android and iOS, our website (https://www.tuhu.cn), and mobile site (https://wx.tuhu.cn) were all created using Sympli technologies.
(Tuhu's projects in Sympli)
(Tuhu's app on Android and iOS devices)
(Tuhu's website)
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