Overview
In the current climate, there is a disconnect between talent, client, and traditional working models. How can we create a talent marketplace for the creative communications industry with the capacity to build remote project teams, and seamlessly integrate workflow tools?
To further design and develop wireframes for customer journeys. Ongoing conversations with the client revealed the need to pivot from the original brief to research and hypothesis-driven design.
Though the delivery of wireframes and a prototype helped the client further conversation for the development of the platform, the real value to the client came from our recommendations and insights into research applying a lean UX method to further develop their product.
My role: UX/UI design, user research
Team: Rod Victoria, Felipe Sandoval
Duration: 3 weeks
Tools: Figma, Miro
It begins
The Brief
My colleague and I were engaged by COTU to design and create several wireframes and a prototype, with a focus on the various elements of the customer journey for both client and talent.
In addition to what the client wanted, we also identified what the client needed.
CREATIVES OF THE UNIVERSE
What is COTU?
COTU is a start-up looking to design and create a talent marketplace platform for the continuously evolving creative communications industry with the capacity to build remote, global project teams with workflow being delivered through the platform and associated apps.
What does COTU do?
A platform curating, filtering, and matching top-quality creative talent to top-tier clients at the level of experience they choose. A next-generation talent marketplace, agile, mobile-friendly, and operating with a high rate of flexibility and transparency.
The COTU platform enables clients to create virtual project teams with integrated workflow tools supporting the collaboration process. Frictionless person-to-person payments, offering the option of payments in fiat and crypto through digital wallets.
The Problem &
The Solution
On further conversations with COTU, we realized that no prior UX research had been performed for the development of its platform and in response, we had to pivot to a research and design lead solution.
This created an exciting opportunity for us to expand COTU's thinking beyond wireframes and to use a Lean UX approach to design a user-centered use of the platform.
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What they wanted
Wireframes & Prototypes
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What they needed
Research & Development
So we asked
Where could COTU add value to its user?
The Landscape
What could COTU offer?
We performed a comparative & competitive analysis of the talent marketplace landscape with four well-known providers. The comparative & competitive search helped determine:
What competitors are doing right.
What competitors are not doing at all.
Seek and you shall find
What we found
Most competitors provide the primary services you would expect from a talent marketplace platform.
Freelance management.
Talent search.
Job boards.
Talent vetting
What we didn’t find
Most competitors do not provide the following services.
Project management
Task management
So where’s the value?
If COTU can identify at least one element where it could add the most value to its user, it could stand out from the rest.
Identifying Primary Users
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Client
Brands
Ad agencies
Tech companies
Consultancies
Startups
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Talent
Producers
Design Talent
Tech & Dev’s
Freelance creatives
It all starts at the beginning
JOURNEY MAP
A journey map can help us identify if customer experiences meet customers’ expectations and find areas where the platform could improve designs to satisfy the customer’s needs.
We created a journey map for the primary users of the platform, both performing similar tasks with different goals in mind. We considered pain points in all the activities where the users had a neutral or a negative experience while performing tasks on the platform which led us to potential ideas and solutions to reduce the friction of those activities.
Insights & Inspirations
We considered pain points in all the activities where the users had a neutral or a negative experience while performing tasks on the platform which led us to potential ideas and solutions to reduce the friction on those activities.
Some interesting key points came out of this approach, which provided us with inspiration and more insights that helped us build our design hypotheses.
Negative Pain Points
Platform registration rejection
Solution: Provide simple and easy-to-use templates tailored for specific industries, including context, goals, timeline, schedule, target audience, and scope.
Canceled project
Solution: Have the ability to reschedule the talent's availability, providing notification to all members of the team.
Client/Talent disputes
Solution: Provide a dispute center where users can report incidents and solve disputes for work hours, payments, and unresponsive talents.
Neutral Pain Points
Building a project brief
Solution: Provide simple and easy-to-use templates tailored for specific industries, including context, goals, timeline, schedule, target audience, and scope.
Search for users or projects
Solution: Provide an easy keyword filtering & search system.
Review applications
Solution: Provide enough talent information, and the ability to save and shortlist talents.
Project collaboration
Solution: Customizable workspace providing essential remote project management tools.
Building on assumptions
Building for conversations
Since we built our wireframes and prototype based on assumptions, the goal was to help in further conversations of COTU and its design.
Workspace Dashboard
When login into the platform we found it important to lead all users to their dashboard, with a clear and easy view of all active projects, a calendar for key dates and milestones, a chatbox, with reminders and to-do lists.
Left-hand side menu
Would be used to navigate between projects, favorite talent or clients, and invoicing features.
Top navigation
Would be used to access the COTU community, search for new projects and keep up with news and updates.
The project hub
Would work as a virtual office where users could meet to share files, communicate with each other and keep track of important dates and milestones.
Wireframes
WorkSpace
A central “workspace” made up of floating tiles that are customized and can be moved.
Key features:
Notifications snapshot
Quick access to all areas of the platform
Project status snapshot
Track applications
Messages & chat
Calendar
Project Status
A progress menu of projects that users are working on.
Key features:
Project progress & status
Team information
Client information
Create new projects
Favorites Menu
A section to save and sort favorite talent, clients or companies.
Key features:
Create lists or folders
Drag & drop functionality
Search & filter options
Projects Menu
Section to manage and track all projects you are working on.
Key features:
Project information
Progress status
Team members
Media server
Calendar
Workflow tools
User Profiles
All users must complete a profile, with key information required.
The information provided will be used to match talent with clients and vice versa.
Invoicing
Dedicated invoice section for all users to track payments.
Key features:
Create, send & track invoices
Colored graphs to show payment breakdowns.
Key date countdown
Invoice templates
Filter and search function
The Lucky Six
Usability Testing
We performed usability tests with six potential users, which is typically enough to provide sufficient data to see patterns that we can translate into main insights that could help drive our proposed design direction.
There are many ways to perform usability tests, all of which have the same goal; to get vital insights into how well your design works (or doesn’t work).
Our Findings
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Positive Feedback
A clear and easy-to-understand primary purpose
The use of a central dashboard was well received
You can see everyone involved in the project, which makes it feel like a team.
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Negative Feedback
The top navigation menu was confusing
Confusing registration process
Preference to use external workflow tools
Creating a project (and building a team) is confusing
Our objective.
Determine whether users can complete tasks successfully and independently.
Assess their performance as they complete tasks, to see how well the design works.
Observe how users enjoy or did not enjoy the experience.
Identify problems and their severity.
What we learned.
We identified that the core purpose of the platform could be was evident and clear, however, most participants found the platform navigation confusing.
Testing an early concept of the design with potential users can help you identify key features in your design, as well as flaws you may have otherwise have overlooked. Then, you can leverage these insights to make improvements.
The Pivot & Recommendations
The pivot from the original brief became a key part of our recommendation for this project.
Moving beyond the initial wireframes work and having identified what the client needed we proposed a Lean UX design approach toward the development of COTU and its platform.
The winner is
Lean UX
It's not enough to design a service or product and hope that your users will be happy with it. You need a process that will allow you to create that service or product and allow for changes if required.
We proposed an approach following these 4 methods:
Assumptions, Hypotheses & Outcomes
Design
Creation of MVP
Testing, Learning & Research
We declared
Outcomes, Assumptions, Hypotheses
To achieve good outcomes, we need to shift away from what we think is required of a product.
Where most software/platform creation processes focus on features and functions, we want to highlight the outcomes of the product and how it will benefit (or not benefit) the user. Assumptions are a great way to establish what you believe you know about your users and what you think they need.
Working solely on assumptions based on what we know, we have devised the groundwork for COTU going forward.
These could involve risk and could be wrong, but the feedback obtain will be valuable to help with furthering the design process of the platform.
Why you gotta be basic?
Design
The design begins by testing the hypotheses based on assumptions, the hypotheses would be the features and functions that could be proposed for COTU.
You need to determine what it is that you expect to achieve by testing these assumptions. Ask these three questions.
What is the feature or function?
Why is it important?
Who is it important to?
You must determine what evidence you would need to collect to prove that this process was valuable. If enough data is collected you can begin development of an MVP.
Low expense, High Impact
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The idea is to get the most basic expression of your product out with just enough features to see how your target users will react to it.
Testing an MVP by early users can provide you with valuable insights into whether you're on the right track. An MVP can be in the form of:
Wireframes
Mockups - higher-fidelity versions of the product
Prototypes - an elementary version of your product with minimal functionality and design
Takeaways
Test, Learn & Research
Are you giving your users what they need?
The most crucial and beneficial feedback and critiques come from the users, the people who will be using the product or service. Users should always come first with each design decision.
The goal for COTU is to gain insights in a quick but comprehensive way by performing systematic research to make sure its development is on the right track.
Rather than focusing on the end product, COTU should pay attention to how its product will impact Its user. It will give COTU the freedom to design MVP’s quickly based on feedback.
Looking back &
Looking Forward
How I felt working on this project..
I didn’t know what to expect from this project when we were given our brief, but it sure was a very interesting and rewarding experience.
Our client did not have a realized product, they were in the process of designing a brand new marketplace platform for the creative industry. We were very keen to get on board and help our client from concept to ideation.
It was a scary situation to finally work on a real project for a real client, but at the same time exciting to finally start putting the skills that I had learnt over the last 12 weeks to use.
My take away from this project..
Trust your inner-UXer and don’t be afraid to speak up when it’s appropriate.
Clients are coming to you with problems that they need solutions for you are not only allowed but also expected to challenge a brief if you believe that there could be an area of improvement.
What I can use from this in future..
Only having ideas of what the product could be, seemed very complicated at the time. Looking back now I feel like I’m more capable as a UX designer.
Working on this project gave me a glimpse outside the classroom into the real world where not everything is as expected but that what makes it all the more interesting.
I hope to be involved in various projects, across multiple industries in my career as a UX designer.