A networking and team building app targeting students & young professionals
My Role:
Product Designer, Researcher, Branding
Duration
1 Month (Jun 2021)
Tools:
Figma
Industry:
Social Networking
01 /
Overview
Coalesce is an innovative app created to facilitate engaging and trustworthy team formation experiences for a diverse range of projects and to foster meaningful professional connections. Its target audience is comprised of college students and young professionals seeking to gain practical experience prior to entering the workforce.
02 /
The Challenge
I vividly recall my first attempt at designing an app in early 2021. I was overwhelmed and uncertain about every design choice, longing for a second pair of eyes to review and enhance my work. I also wanted to gauge people's opinions on the product idea, as I was so invested in it that I wanted to bring it to life. I had a full team in my head, but in reality, it was just me - a novice designer and junior engineer who had only started writing print ("Hello World") 1.5 years prior, with no product or business experience.
Despite the challenges, I was able to bring the product prototype to fruition. However, that didn't stop me from wondering:
Problem Statement:
How can I design a platform that enables students & young professionals to grow and gain practical experience through project work?
03/
Discover
To get a more holistic understanding of the status quo of college students as well as young professionals, and to see whether they are facing similar challenges as me, I started off my user research with user interviews by reaching out to both my friends as well as alumni connected from LinkedIn.
Key Insights
01. Suboptimal Team Dynamics
Inability to work well with team members is a common struggle in group projects and a frequent cause of project failure.
02. Difficult To Find New Members
Finding the RIGHT new team members that match the expected skillsets and experiences can be difficult - LinkedIn is not always reliable and people are often unresponsive to work inquiries on social media.
03. Challenge In Starting Projects
For students, it can be difficult to start a project due to a lack of guidance and knowledge of the scope of opportunities available. Additionally, many people lack the motivation or confidence to do so.
04. Various Project Types
In addition to starting their own projects, people often participate in projects initiated by companies, such as design challenges and case competitions.
🔗 The details of the user interview can be accessed here.
User Persona
Based on user interviews, the main differences in people's project preferences are their desire to initiate projects and the traits they seek in teammates. I created two personas based on this finding: a project initiator, Chloe Chen, and a
project participant, Max Yang.
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Journey Mapping
I created the corresponding journey maps based on the two focus personas, with Chloe focusing on the experiences of creating a project, and Max the experience of joining existing projects.
04/
Define
Based on the insights from the persona and journey map, several potential pain points and hidden opportunities have been identified in the team matching process. These insights have informed the following major design principles for the product:
Design Principles & Refined Research Questions
01. Delightful💡
Finding the right teammate depends on so many factors: personalities, skill sets, devotion, level of responsiveness, etc.
How can I create a team matching experience that is engaging and streamlined?
02. Proactive 🔖
More people involved in an uncertain event, e.g. team building, equals more coordination effort and less alignment.
How can I predict and respond to users' implicit needs by providing suggested actions?
03. Flexible 🧘🏻♂️
People are interested in participating in a range of projects, including those that are self-initiated by users and those that are organized by companies.
How can I balance the need for flexibility to accommodate different project types with the need for a consistent user flow?
Research Constraints
1. The small number of user interviews may have resulted in a biased sample and therefore, potentially unreliable research results.
2. A limited diversity of interviewees' backgrounds may have resulted in other factors of the project matching experience not being adequately considered.
These factors will be considered in further stages of the project, where I plan to create a desktop version of the product that provides a more comprehensive experience for users after they have formed a team: tracking project progress, sharing case studies, etc.
05/
Ideation
Flow Chart
Based on the findings from the user research, I developed the following flow chart to better guide my design process.
🔗 A more detailed version of the flow chart can be found here.
Iterations & Usability Testing
The team matching experience is a key feature of this product. My aim is to design a unique and enjoyable user experience that is also intuitive and familiar. The effectiveness and enjoyment of the team matching process depends on how recommended users are displayed. To achieve this, the interface should:
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Clearly categorize users, e.g. school mates, matching personalities, etc.
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Be informative but uncluttered
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Be fun and interactive.
To validate these goals, I developed mockups and conducted usability testing with 8 of my interviewees.
The first three mockups boast clear information hierarchy, a safer option according to participants, yet they were pleasantly surprised to find themselves fascinated by the fourth interface with its intriguing apple-watch-like circular motion. Despite their excitement, several concerns were raised about the drawbacks of the design:
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The limited metadata, with just a profile picture, caused frustration as it made the matching process less efficient and required extra clicks for information.
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The lack of ordering, which made it challenging to determine the recommended users, was a major source of concern for participants. Despite the circular motion's visual appeal, its usefulness was questioned.
Therefore, I started another round of iterations to explore the possibilities of alleviating these drawbacks.
1). Metadata
During my search for a clear, yet unobtrusive way to display important metadata on circles, I realized it was difficult. To determine which metadata would be most important to users for initial impressions of potential teammates, I asked the 8 participants during usability testing, and the results showed that users are mainly interested in skill sets, not names or titles.
2). Results Ranking
Order of ranking in circular scrolling is challenging. I tried using different transparencies and varying the size of profile pictures as a reflection. Usability testing showed that size variations are a more intuitive way of reflecting ordering ranking.
Final Solution:
06/
Design
Branding
The color scheme for Coalesce is inspired by high-saturation, high-intensity colors found in CMYK and youth-oriented products like Tiktok and Paparazzi, representing energy and vibrancy.
The circular team matching interface with skill set icons is a defining characteristic of the product. I reflected this in the logo by layering random shapes on top of one another, symbolizing the ability to find ideal teammates and make imaginary projects a reality through the app.
Prototype
Detailed onboarding to get the initial user profile.
Project Browsing page for users' to join projects of their interests based on the initial user profile.
Users can save the projects of their interests for later.
Project Initiation page that allows users to choose the projects they want to initiate, the number and attributes of teammates they are looking for.
Users are able to let the system generate a random group of teammates, look at the detailed profile of the potential teammate with a simple click, and lock the ideal ones with a simple tap.
Users can send invitation to the ideal teammates directly from the matching tab and a group chat is automatically made.
A chat page that supports both individual and group chats.
Users can also browse through the ongoing competitions/challenges hosted by companies and join their group chats to learn more or participate.
07/
Reflection
1. Jump out of the box.
When it comes to interface design, it is worth jumping out of the box to explore non-conventional ways of interactions. Just because they are non-conventional does not mean that they are non advantageous comparing to the traditionally safer choices. Perhaps, these design choices would be the key to make your project unique.
2. Embed usability testing into more stages of the design process.
This is the first time that I conducted usability testing during the ideation stage, and I was struck by its significance. This approach to testing enables the prioritization of user needs throughout the process and ensures that no extraneous work is performed.