We Are One
2 Months
Individual
Figma
What Led Me Here?
Over the past three months, I've met various individuals to understand how they interact with technology in their daily lives. As I put the pieces together, what started as a leisurely activity gained momentum. A vast majority of the people I met were small business owners, primarily homegrown brands, who use existing social media platforms for advertising their businesses. Some had ventures like co-working spaces, group travel programs, catering, and hosting; everyone depends on social media to gain traction.
Moreover, I got the opportunity to interact with a few non-profit organizations. These ventures do not have a reliable way to spread awareness. They either have social media accounts that often do not reach a wider audience or depend on newspapers to cover their story. Whatever the method, one thing is sure, most of the businesses and non-profits are struggling to reach a broader population of the city. Even with good products and intentions, they struggle to find a community supporting them. Thus, I came up with an idea of a dedicated social platform for such businesses and non-profits to give them an opportunity to build a community of their own.
Context:
Social media, as we know it, is saturated with content. Good and bad content, content that gets overshadowed by others, exaggerated content, content that's forced to look relevant, and content that's just there to do the numbers. We see influencers, business owners, content creators, critics, bloggers, non-profits, educational ventures, and people with an array of intents, interests, impacts, motives, needs and wants, and whatnot trying to be at the top of their social media game. And it's all for traction. Consequently, what's meant for a particular group of consumers might get missed by them because the algorithm may not always favor every business and non-profit. For these platforms, users are their product, and the more time they spend online, the better for their business. A sense of community cannot be derived from such platforms because they're not designed to provide that. Therefore, a lot of times, intention stays aloof from the opportunity.
Well, that's how I started thinking about We Are One. I wanted small or large, local, homegrown, passionate, and intent-driven businesses and non-profits in my city to have their chance to meet opportunities. And I wanted the potential customers to find things of interest in the city they live in. Thus creating a community as a whole. And that's the idea behind the We Are One Community app and website
Process:
Every phase of the User Experience Design process has been thoroughly followed and iterated upon until the desired outcome has been achieved. During the Empathize phase, I tried to understand the user needs within the scope of this project. I used the Define phase to come up with an actionable problem statement. The Ideate phase was dedicated to brainstorming a bunch of ideas. The Prototype and Test phases were iterated upon a few times until the design aligned with the goals. The define phase was particularly challenging and crucial because I had to provide a structure and frame achievable goals for an otherwise vague idea.
Future Considerations
Throughout this project, I learned the importance of little things like using the right colors in the right amount, softening up the elements using shadows and curved edges, using the right text and varying the size according to hierarchy and screen size. I also learned how important it is to consider who uses a particular screen size and for what purpose.
Moving forward, I am planning on improving the overall feel of the website by including more animations in the pages and enhancing the transitions across pages. I will be looking for ways to make this platform more responsive and accessible.
Empathize Phase:
In this phase, I conducted user research by interviewing potential users, creating empathy maps, understanding user pain points, creating user personas, and crafting user stories and user journey maps to get a better understanding of the users. some of the findings have been included here.
User Interviews:
I put together some interview goals to understand how businesses use social media to put out content that advertises their business. Consumers were also identified and interviewed to understand what makes them purchase products or sign up for things that social media shows them. I interviewed two local business owners, one non-profit volunteer, and two people who can be identified as potential customers for such ventures.
It was surprising to see how often people purchase things unintentionally just because they popped up on their feed and intrigued them. This is almost like a habit that builds over time; people admit that it is frustrating. They feel as if they lose control over themselves for a while. Also, they might not always get what they're looking for. There is a lot of noise and confusion on a social media, and when they're scrolling, they're not doing it with a purpose. This is very dangerous for all the businesses that rely on social media to advertise their products because they cannot guarantee to have a loyal customer base if they're gaining it through social media.
Businesses and non-profits, on the other hand, want to work on a platform that's easy to use. And since India is dominantly using a single social media platform, they are left with no option. Even if they want a dedicated customer base, they need to achieve it through their online presence. At the same time, most of them admit that having an online presence is essential for their growth because they cannot reach a wider audience offline.
Define Phase:
After spending considerable amount of time on the Empathize phase, I moved on to the Define phase. Here, I studied and analysed whatever I’ve gained through the previous phase and worked towards narrowing the gap between the problem and the desired state by defining a problem statement to work upon. I made sure that the problem statement was user centered, open ended as well as manageable.
Problem Statement:
I combined what I wanted to achieve in this project with whatever I gathered through empathize phase to come up with a problem statement. Here's a gist of the statement.
I must design a mobile app and a website which primarily focuses on maintaining authenticity in the intentions and motivations of its users. It must have a way to authenticate the purpose of the business, non-profits and members joining the platform in a humanized manner. The platform must be simple and easy to use. It should provide a way for businesses and non-profits to showcase their offerings, services and requirements. It must also help these ventures in developing an online identity which could be readily perceived by other members who are looking for various opportunities and services on this platform.
Ideate Phase:
Now that I had a fairly clear picture of how this platform needs to be, I began ideating. Various approaches were explored before I fixated on most of the elements. I wanted to have a simple and easy navigation. Keeping in mind the level of comfort that my target users feel around technology, it was crucial to avoid confusion, that may surface up in the presence of an overwhelming amount of options, through my designs.
Wireframes:
After pondering upon different ideas, and creating paper wireframes and digital wireframes, I began to create low fidelity prototypes. I also tested these prototypes on potential users and tweaked them now and then before creating the high-fidelity prototypes.
Prototype Phase:
Low Fidelity Prototype:
After the finalizing upon the paper wireframes, I created the low fidelity prototypes for both the mobile application and the website. The placements of the primary design elements were carefully thought and finalized upon through multiple iterations that followed the usability testing.
:
Testing Low Fidelity Prototype:
At this point, it was crucial to carry out the usability testing to before creating the mockups and high-fidelity prototypes. I reached out to a few people and some of them agreed to participate. I met most of them in a park and observed them while they interacted with the lo-fi prototype.
Modifications in the low-Fidelity Prototype:
Based on the observations and insights gathered from the usability testing, alterations were done on the lo-fi prototype. Some primary modifications are mentioned below.
Mockups:
After finalizing the lo-fi prototypes, I created some mockups and a high fidelity prototype. The hi-fi prototype went through a round of usability testing and was modified accordingly.
User Personas:
Creating user personas helped me to realistically represent the users I am designing the platform for. Periodically referring to these personas allowed me to stay on track through all phases of the design cycle. Moreover, It helped me to retain the human aspect while designing. Here are some of the personas that I've created.
Initial Interview Goals:
I wanted to know:
What do business and non-profits like and dislike about social media platforms?
What aspects of social media promote in business growth?
How do people track and analyze their online presence?
What is the mind set of potential customers while scrolling social media?
What drives a sense of community within people?
Are feelings like oneness, belongingness and having a sense of community really important for non-profits and businesses?
Mamta, Business Owner
“I still cannot believe that I did it. Having my own business feels so empowering”
Bio
Goals
Frustrations
Mamta has recently established her own boutique which she is very excited about. She has always dreamed of doing this and now she has finally done it. Mamta is always juggling between managing her household chores and the boutique. She is a very passionate business woman and has some clear vision about where she wants to take her business. Mamata is interested in any opportunity that’ll help her to expand her business and to create a brand identity.
Find opportunities to showcase her business.
Wants her business to do well.
Wants to take out time for her family as well.
She has a smartphone thats he uses for general texting and calls, but she isn’t very confortable in navigating the internet.
A lot of her time goes into networking through calls or in-person for her business, which leaves little time for her family.
Commerce Graduate
Raipur, India
31
Husband, Kid
For this usability testing, I have identified the following goals:
• Whether the designs are being easily interpreted by the users.
• Whether the users, especially those who are not very technologically sound, feel that the designs are intuitive enough.
• Whether the users are able to understand the idea behind the creation of this platform.
• Whether the interactive elements are easily usable.
• Do the users feel engaged enough to follow through a task and not abandon it midway.
• Are the users able to easily complete primary tasks like:
Registering as a member, business and non-profits.
Maintaining user profile.
Navigating to the "Resources" page.
Scrolling and interacting through the homepage.
Creating new posts.
Usability Testing of Lo-Fi Prototypes
Goals
I gathered a group of 5 participants to carry out this research.
Following are the descriptions of the participants:
• A 22-year-old female who has recently shifted to Raipur to attend college.
• A 44-year-old male who has been working in the government sector for over a decade.
• A 32-year-old home maker who is planning to start a catering business.
• A 28-year-old male who works as an event manager.
• A 38-year-old female who works in the social services sector.
Participants
Following are the main observations drawn out during the testing:
• 3 out of 5 participants wasn't sure of what "Analytics" tab was meant for and had trouble in understanding how this section works. Most of them didn't go ahead to open up the charts.
• 4 out of 5 participants were not able to use the interactive elements related to the posts in the home page effectively.
• 2 out of 5 participants struggled with the desktop website. One of them mentioned that the posts are too "in the face".
Observations
Based on the observations, following insights were drawn out:
• The interactive elements related to a post in the home page need to be presented in a better manner.
• The content hierarchy and layout of the desktop website need to be modified.
• The Analytics tab needs to be renamed and its elements should be presented effectively.
Insights
Design Modifications in the Home Page
Design Modifications in the Analytics Page
Before
Before
After
After
Earlier, each rectangular card would contain a short description of the information represented by the chart and clicking the arrow button would open the chart. But this design seemed complicated to most of the users. Some didn't even open the charts because of an extra step of clicking the arrow.
Therefore, I tweaked the design a bit and decided to display charts on the same page while keeping the description minimal. These changes further added to the easy-to-use and uncomplicated design theme that I was aiming to achieve. I also changed the tab name from "Analytics" to "Resources" because the former was slightly more technical and might not be easily interpreted by users from all kinds of background.
Because a lot of space was available and content spanning accross the width was harder for the human eyes to scan through, I decided to split the screen into two. The first part is used to display content and the second part holds the navigation panel. This design avoids the problem of the content looking awkwardly big and at the same time reduces strain on the eyes. The position of the navigation panel increases usability as well.
Modifications in the Registration Page
To avoid the factor of uncertainty among the users that might occur regarding the length of the registration process, I decided to add a small tracker on top of the page to indicate may many steps are there in the process. It’s a small tweak but I think it helps a lot because many times when users are not completly aware of what’s about to happen, they start to incline towards abandoning the entire process. Having an indicator like this helps to provide a bit more clarity around the registration process.
Before
After
I decided to split the small interactive icons into two groups and placed it above and below the post image. This modification makes advantageous use of white spaces and avoids a cluttered feel.
Final Mockups and Prototypes:
This design meets the design goals as it provides a way for businesses and non-profits to post and connect with their users. It also provides a platform for users who are looking for interesting things to do in their city. Thus, it establishes a foundation upon which businesses and non-profits can build an authentic community. The color schemes are lively and inviting. The font family used enhances the reading proficiency and reduces visual strain. I've kept the information architecture very clean and simple so that the flow is intuitive and avoids confusion. I've made every design decision keeping in mind that many users of this platform are not very comfortable around using digital products because of their limited familiarity with technology.