Mobile Design: OptiMize
Summary:
OptiMize is a student-led organization from the University of Michigan that offers mentorship, community, and funding to student entrepreneurs who are focused on social impact work. In this conceptual project a team of UX/UI students and I were tasked with creating a mobile platform that allows student entrepreneurs to connect with mentors, see current projects other students are working on, and track the progress of their own projects.
Problem:
Student entrepreneurs need a better way to find guidance when growing their business because it's hard to verify which mentors can be trusted for advice.
Solution:
A mobile platform that allows student entrepreneurs to connect with mentors, see current projects other students are working on, and track the progress of their own projects.
Role:
A mobile platform that allows student entrepreneurs to connect with mentors, see current projects other students are working on, and track the progress of their own projects.
Methods:
Heuristic analysis, competitive & comparative analysis, interviews, affinity mapping, personas, user flows, sketches, wireframes and prototyping.
Timeline and planning:
The very first thing we did as a team was make a project plan. Spearheaded by our planning lead Genesis Valentine, we created an outline of what we needed to accomplish.
Interviews:
Together we drafted interview questions as well as a discussion guide to help us further uncover and understand our user’s needs. Then over the next few days we each ran several user interviews. Since we were working together on this project remotely, we decided to use the program Miro to synthesize our data into a digital affinity map.
Interview trends:
Competitive analysis:
User stories:
Personas:
After we synthesized the research, some trends started to emerge. We utilized these trends to create some user personas. These personas were used throughout the design process to always keep our users in mind.
The Doer
The Doer is not afraid to stumble because they know that they’ll learn in the process
The Thinker
The Thinker needs to think through every step before starting. They’re often hesitant and overthink. They need a lot of reassurance before making a decision.
The business:
The problem:
Now that we had concluded our interviews, research synthesis, affinity mapping, business research, and personas, we were able to create a problem statement.
User flows & wireframes:
First we started crafting some user flows. We wanted to get a feel for some of the main pages we would need. After that we made a few low fidelity wireframes to get a better feel for possible layouts.
Colors:
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Typography:
Proxima Nova
Prototype:
