My Role: UX Research & UX/UI Design • Project Duration: November - December 2021 (3 Weeks)
Why It Matters
As a child in the early 2000s who was obsessed with Photoshop, I was never a stranger to design tutorials. Unfortunately for that time, there was only enough out there to get your feet wet. If you wanted to get better at a program, you either sat on the program for hours fiddling with the controls, or you bought a book. Times have changed.
In 2021, with endless possibilities at our fingertips, designers have everything we could have ever asked for but with no way to pull it all together. One tutorial here, a course over there, a design community somewhere else entirely. My intention with Design With We was to create a space for everything a designer could need - no matter their level of experience. So, let’s dive in.
User Research: Getting Real
In the early stages of research, I interviewed a group of designers with different backgrounds, professions, and experience levels to hone in on where the problems present themselves in their day-to-day lives.
How does it feel to try to learn or improve at design in this saturated market? If you could change something to make the process less stressful, what would it be? What could help make you a better designer?
Issue #1: Too many tutorials, in too many different places, made by too many people.
Issue #2: Tutorials mostly contain unclear instructions, video steps, or lack transcripts/subtitles.
Issue #3: When a new beginner tries to take on a new endeavor, they are overwhelmed trying to find where to start.
Meet Steven, a graphic designer who needs his content quick and to-the-point.
Kim, on the other hand, is a software developer looking to make a change, but needs a push to get started.
Meet Our Competitors
Design & Ideation
As I moved into my initial wireframes, I began on paper and started sketching some of the concepts I had in my head.
The Initial Prototype
Even in a low-fidelity prototype, I can’t help myself but to add some colors and fonts. Take a look around.
User Testing
Usability Study: Key Insights & Findings
Focus on Verbiage: “How-To” “Tutorials” “Courses” and “Jumpstarts might not be clear to all users, so it’s best to split them up distinctly in verbiage and in separate sections.
Fix Navigation: With verbiage changes, it was imperative that navigation reflected the important sections of the website and were intuitive.
Button Consistency: Some features for the video tutorial page, as well as across the website, needed the look of a “button” and increased consistency.
Design With We Architecture
Utilizing feedback from the usability studies, I was able to hone in on the navigation that would create a seamless experience for users to decide their pathway: enter the community, watch a tutorial, start a career, or learn more.
High-Fidelity Iterations
Brand Identity
Navigation Flow
Three main pages were updated in order to provide a more intuitive user flow. The main split is between Tutorials & Courses and Career Jumpstarts. While how-tos and “courses” provided more similar intent (learning skills here and there, a la carte), it was easier to differentiate the purpose of a career jumpstart as a more fleshed out set of skills to learn along with hiring tips, mentorship, and more.
The Community page was overhauled to be inclusive of all elements in that scope, including a search function, a design the day prompt (to promote creativity), a forum, and a mentorship match option for intermediate/advanced designers.
Tutorial Flow (Jumpstart)
Most users found this flow very intuitive, and all of the features provided were tested appropriately. The small tweaks made were suggestions to 1) ensure buttons were a brighter yellow, 2) split up how-to instructions and comments within each video, and 3) create a progress flow “up next” - “previous.”
Accessibility Considerations
Testing font sizes and contrast for sight-impaired individuals will be of increasing importance, and ensuring the subtitles and languages are available in many languages will have to be a contribution added before launching the site.
Try the Prototype
Takeaways
The greatest thing about user research is its surprises, no matter how close you are to the product, no matter if you would be considered a user for the product in another life. Designers need consistency, but they also need creativity. It’s most important to find the line between colorful and candid and structured and straightforward.
There is so much left to the imagination about what can be done within the community to inspire other designers, to empower their current and future skills - and I’m so excited to explore that.