Creator App

A business learning platform for creative designers.

Overview

PROBLEM

One of the main struggles or pitfalls that creative people face when embarking on their entrepreneurial journey is acquiring the essential business skill set or mindset necessary to build a sustainable creative business.

PROJECT GOAL

Develop a space for creative entrepreneurs to connect, engage and learn from industry professionals and resources that are personalised to their business.

ROLES
UX Researcher, UX Designer,
UI Designer, Graphic Designer

PROCESS
Project Brief
User Research
Information Architecture
Wire-framing
Prototyping
User TestingDesign Implementation

PROJECT
Career Foundry UX / Personal Project

What challenges are entrepreneurs facing in their business?

My goal was to identify what type of business roadblocks people were facing, and what stage of business they were in. Although anyone who works within the creative sector can fall under the term ‘Creative Entrepreneurs,’ I decided to create a solution for the design business sector (visual design, web/user interface design, product design, etc.).

The Interviews

I conducted in-person and Skype interviews with 8 creative professionals who were either setting up a business or growing an existing business. The participants shared their business aspirations and goals with me, before we dived deeper into their “pain-points,” roadblocks and business needs. The following were the main business challenges, motivations and resistance found:

Main Business Challenges Identified:

Lack of knowledge to start, build or sustain business
Difficulty finding quality advisors within the creative field
Finding quality clients and projects
Sales & Marketing
Financial Security
Fear of rejection

Reason to use a business advisor:

Validation business ideas or assumptions
Challenge ideas and thinking
Access to quality resources or network
Better business structure to sustain or level up business to next level

Potential resistance to using a business advisor:

Lack of trust towards advisor’s quality or skill
Financial restraint or too expensive
Overly self-reliant personality or beliefs
Unwillingness to share business ideas

Organising the insights

At the time of working on this project I had to borrow a large wall at home to work on my affinity mapping! Some sticky notes still remain. The insights were organised into an affinity map under seven meaningful categories to help me identify any major themes. The categories covered their business needs, motivations, challenges and pain points and whether having access to an external professional would benefit them.

The Findings -
"Users had different mindsets when tackling the same problem"

My interviews with the participants confirmed that those in the same business stages (e.g. idea stage, startup or expansion) expressed similar business needs and challenges regardless of which design industry they were from. For example, 4 participants (a graphic designer, web developer and 2 game designers) who identified themselves as starting out, mentioned very similar, if not, the exact business challenges (e.g finding client, making sales).

However, I was surprised to learn that participants also had very different mindsets and approaches when it came to tackling similar business challenges. For example, I asked 2 participants (both graphic designers and business partners facing the same business challenges) how they would use a mentor to help with their business challenges:

Participant #1 response was: “I want them to assist and walk us through the steps to achieve our end goal”. He preferred a step-by-step guided approach.

Participant #2 response was: “I don’t want to trade in hardship. [I have to] be careful that the business mentor don’t rob my experience from doing it myself”. He preferred a DIY approach and to be challenged by the mentor.

The 4 Personas

I created personas to represent users from three business stages (startup, growth and expansion). Each personas contain details on their business needs, challenges and preferred learning tools (e.g. video, audio, books etc.). They were used to help me stay focused on the user’s need throughout the project.

PERSONAS

User Stories

User stories were created and used as a reference throughout the project to maintain focus on what the actual problems are and to maintain clarity on what design features are relevant and why. The structure I used was:

“As a [persona], I [want to], [so that I can].”

User story #1

As a creative designer, I want to build up my business knowledge and skillset, so I can confidently build up a financially sustainable and rewarding business that I am happy with.

User story #2

As an existing business owner, I want to quickly find quality solutions to my business problems, so I can continue growing my business without wasting time on inefficient solutions that don’t work.

User story #3

As a creative business owner, I want to view the past works and credentials of a professional advisor, so I can validate that they have the relevant knowledge and experience best suited to help me with my business.

Mapping the user's journey

I created 4 user flows (one for each personas) and a mental model in order to deepen my understanding and empathise with the users.

User flow: Each user flow details the user’s behaviour and emotional experiences under each journey phases the business owner would highly likely experience:

Phase 1: Seek out a solution by themselves (identify issue)
Phase 2: Ask a professional for help
Phase 3: Receive Help
Phase 4: Apply potential solution to their business

Mental Model: I decided to take this part of the research to the next level (and to challenge myself) by creating a mental model. The mental model enabled me to identify more specific behaviours, beliefs and thoughts on a deeper level. I also identified richer design features that would support each phase of their journey or educate them in areas/gaps that may differ from their pre-existing experience.

Designing the structure of the app (IA)

I proceeded to build the information architecture for the app using Axure RP. During this phase, my focus was to establish the features, page arrangement, menu item and terminology that is easiest for users to understand and relate.

Card Sorting

Once I was happy with the arrangement and flow of the pages, I conducted an open card sorting exercise using Optimal Workshop with 8 participants to test how well they understood or related to the menu items and terminology.

Participants’ Task: The participants’ task was to sort 30 cards (menu items and pages) into groups that made sense to them and then to label each category. Card sorting was done via OptimalWorkshop.

The results: 7 out of 8 participants completed the task and sorted the cards into an average of 7 groups. 1 participant abandoned the task after 4 groups

A room for improvements

The results: Optimal Workshop created a dendrogram and similarity matrix based on the information participants gave, which verified that my original site structure was well relatable to the participants, except for a few minor insights.

Using the right terminology for the right users
I initially used the term “Become an Expert” as a call-to-action for existing professionals who may be interested in signing up for the platform as a contributing expert. However, in the card sorting exercise participants had grouped all learning resources (e.g., course, articles, video, FAQ’s) under the term “Become an expert.” This indicates I needed to retarget the terminology, “Become an expert” towards those looking to grow the business skills, rather than those looking to contribute their knowledge.

Accessibility to booking & payment Page
On the original sitemap, the “My Booking History” and “Payment” pages were displayed separately. Every participant grouped these two pages together implying it would be a good idea to create one page where a user is able to access all booking and payment information.

Prototyping

Putting ideas to paper

I sketched numerous low-fidelity prototypes possibilities, using paper and a pencil (I’m a pencil/paper person) and once I was satisfied with the feature and placement, I transitioned the refined prototype sketches onto a prototyping platform to test the usability and flow of the app.

Refining the prototype

InVision was the main platform I used to develop my prototype presentations. I presented a low-fidelity interactive prototype to a few stakeholders for feedback before developing a high-fidelity prototype to include more specific key details of the interface, such as user interactions, placement of interface feature and icons, onboarding experience, coach marks to help new users familiarise themselves with the app’s feature and so forth. Below shows the individual pages and five sections of the app: onboarding – sign up, search filter, interactive chat, booking process and dashboard summary.

Testing the usability with participants:
The process

1. FINDING THE PARTICIPANTS (DURING HOLIDAY SEASON)

It was the holiday season at the time I conducted the usability test; therefore it was more challenging for me to recruit participants that were available to test in-person. In-person testing was my preference so that I can observe users’ body language. I found and performed a usability test with six participants, who were between 20-32 years old, worked in the creative design industry and were looking to further develop their business or business skills.

2. INFORMING THE PARTICIPANTS

Participants were informed, via email, of what was involved with the test as well as its goal, days before the test, and again right before the test to refresh their memories. During the test, they were asked to perform a set of tasks that I had prepared. To ensure participants felt comfortable and were providing the honest feedback, they were reminded that I was testing the app and not them (not directly, anyway!) and that there was no right or wrong answer.

3. CONDUCTING THE USABILITY TESTS

With permission, I documented verbal feedback via note taking and recording the time it took for each participant to complete a task, as well as, looked for any micro-expression or behaviour that could indicate a potentially positive or negative experience. User testing went longer than intended, but only because users were voluntarily offering more useful feedback than I expected.

4. GATHERING INSIGHTS

After testing, I reviewed the recorded test once more to capture any more important details before I proceeded to evaluate the gathered data.

BELOW ARE RECORDINGS FROM TWO PARTICIPANTS TESTING THE PROTOTYPE

Identifying common themes & opportunities

For the next design iteration my goal was to take the design as close to the finished minimal viable product possible. Below are the methods I used to identify the most critical errors that needs to be eliminated, as well as, any necessary features that were missing from the first round of prototype.

METHOD #1
QUANTITATIVE DATA VIA RAINBOW SHEET

I gathered the data from the user interviews into a rainbow sheet to documented important observations and usability errors. I was able to identify common critical errors and possible solutions to resolve these errors.

METHOD #2 THEMES VIA AFFINITY MAP Although the rainbow spreadsheet was a more quantifiable way to identifying usability errors, I used an affinity group important user quote into common theme. Insights were categorised under, “Observations, “Positive Quotes”, “Negative Quotes” and “Errors. Overall the test provided me with insights of opportunities for improvements.S

The cluster of related data allowed me to identify critical errors and improve the app’s features.

METHOD #3
A/B PREFERENCE TESTING

I have always enjoyed creating preference tests as not only does it help confirm/challenge my design decisions but I am also able to collate qualitative feedback to understand the reasons behind users choices. Since I had trouble deciding between several good design variations and colour theme options therefore I used A/B preference testing to help me make an informed logical decision on which design options would offer the best user experience.

RESULTS & USER FEEDBACKS FROM PREFERENCE TESTS

Design Features
& Solutions

TEST FINDINGS #1

"Users want to validate that someone is actually an “expert” before they hire them as a business consultant. "

The Issues
Users were concerned about hiring an expert that didn’t have sufficient endorsements or proof-of-expertise on their profile and wanted to see more proof such as examples of past mentees and their testimonials. However, this is a new platform and expert who joins may not readily have available testimonials or “past students” to display. My goal was to figure out more ways an experts can highlight their expertises, especially if they are brand new to the platform.

The Solution
The solution is to give experts the ability to highlight their experience and expertise in their profile via real examples of their work and resources (i.e. videos, podcasts, articles etc). Simultaneously , end users are able to interact and gain values from these resources These features are able to offer help users “real proof” and verify the credentials of the expert they wished to work with.

Features:

Statistics: Displays numbers of people who favourited or recommended the expert. A recommendation is earned when a user or expert “recommends” and shares an expert’s detail or resource to another user (see chat feature below).
Tags: Display experts’ field of specialties.
Valuable Resources: Ability for experts to upload videos, podcasts and articles to share. Users are also able to read, listen and favourite these resources.
Recent Contributions: Users are able to see Expert’s recent contributions made on the platform by the experts (e.g. Answers/valuable information that experts posted in app’s forum or knowledge centre).
Online & Live Interactive: The ability for experts to host and users to join online seminar and group calls to share their knowledge.

TEST FINDINGS #2

"75% of participants expected to access all important information via the dashboard"

Main Finding:
The original design contained two pages, the “Dashboard” to access information on recent booking and activities, and “My Advisor” to access details and recent updates from your advisor. The test clearly shows users intuitively expect all important information to be easily accessible from the main page

Solution:

I consolidate the “My Advisor” tab with the dashboard page. A summary of a user’s most important resources (booking details, favourite advisors, messages, etc.) should be easily accessible from the main page.

Richer conversations &
learning experiences

Main Findings:

Since the main focus of this project was to encourage richer learning experiences and conversations between the business owner and business advisors. I designed features that business advisors can easily access in their messaging system and share important resources during active conversations.

Advisor’s View

User’s View

Improving the UI/UX

Six months after I designed and finalised the app I decided to refined the app’s user interface. I had been learning more in-depth UX design principals and decided to relook the interface and identify areas that I could improve on. I also felt there were opportunities to take the branding and visual aspect of the app to a next level. The main things I’ve improved included the colour theme, visual compositions, typography, simplifying information and usability of the app.