Selected Project
Weaver
WHAT IS WEAVER?
Weaver is an online community platform for designers who make and sell their own personal designs. The platform provides designers access to industry peers, experts and manufacturers to help navigate and complete the commercialization process of their design.
SITUATION
TIMELINE
Feb-Aug 2020
~28 weeks
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CONTEXT
MHCI+D program
at University of
Washington
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Capstone Project
TEAM
Jeff Rosen
Carol Chen
Yating Zhang
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Lead UX researcher
Lead research planner
Interview facilitator
Research analyst
Competitive analyst
Usability tester
Project manager
Report writer
Presentation leader
DELIVERABLES
High fidelity
prototype of website
Final concept defense
Lightning talk video
OBJECTIVE
THE TASK
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Create a product that answers a perceived problem in a professional practice or aspect of life
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Identify problem space and target users, complete research, determine opportunity spaces and design the solution to our chosen space
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Manage project scope, deliverables, responsibilities and all other aspects of the project
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Advised by a corporate sponsor
THE TEAM
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Team comprised of three students to ensure the group had a wide range of skill sets and experiences
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My role was the lead researcher, while my teammates led the design effort
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Guided teammates through the research in such a way that they are now very comfortable facilitating and completing their own research projects
THE CHALLENGE​
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How might we help small-scale and independent designers connect with trustworthy international manufacturers while overcoming any issues in communicating with them that they may face?
THE PROJECT
Weaver​
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The solution for the challenge took the form of a website built to streamline the target user's journeys through the process of finding and connecting with manufacturers to turn their designs into tangible products.​
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Weaver incorporates three primary features:
Weaver is a platform for designers to connect with and learn from their peers, as well as find and communicate with manufacturers to identify the best option for their design and business
Community Forums​
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Weaver's users can access multiple community forums, each focused around a specific product type or industry, and converse with other designers who are trying to do the same things.
Mentoring
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Weaver's users can connect with more experienced designers who can provide personalized assistance with specific aspects of the journey, as they have gone through the same struggles earlier in their design career.
Manufacturer Showcase​
Weaver's users can browse through a directory of manufacturers who are profiled on the site. Here, they can converse in live-streamed discussion panels, review manufacturers' qualifications and reputation, and determine which one they might want to have produce their designs.
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The forum search page
The homepage for a community forum
The mentor search page
The profile page for a mentor
The manufacturer showcase homepage
The profile page for a manufacturer
RESEARCH
Conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with targeted users, which were guided by these 4 questions:
What did the process look like for how designers found or attempted to find manufacturers?
What differences and similarities are there between communicating with international manufacturers versus domestic ones?
What values and heuristics do designers consider when deciding on a manufacturer?​
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What tools, platforms or services have designers used or heard of to help facilitate the process of connecting with manufacturers?
Interviews were supplemented with journey-mapping and card sorting activities to visualize the participants' journeys to find and connect with manufacturers and identify key factors that influenced their decision making.
The journey map and some possible steps and tools our participants might have used to find manufacturers
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The cards and hierarchy of importance to the participants
Four subject matter experts in the field of independent design were also interviewed. Experts included manufacturers, a journalist for design magazines and a middleman who facilitates communication between designers and manufacturers.
Three key insights emerged:
Insight 1​
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Despite many designers being willing to help others in the same industry develop their businesses, the competitive nature of many industries makes them afraid to share too much of their manufacturers' information with others.
"I think there is an overall feeling that if someone has a good manufacturer, and then they share it, and then they're flooded with new orders, then the quality is going to go down." - Participant 6
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"If I tell you, you're going to beat me." - Participant 2
Insight 2
Existing online sourcing platforms appear untrustworthy because of their lack of information transparency and weak-designed online presence, and due to this it can be hard for designers and manufacturers to build initial trust.
"It's just sort of really difficult to gauge the authenticity of what's going on because that often manufacturers will take pictures from other people's work. And it's not something that there's a lot of transparency about." - Participant 6
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"So many of the people are actually not manufacturers and they are like... agencies but pretending to be manufacturers so they give you a shit price" - Participant 8
Insight 3
Designers face difficulty understanding product cycle and much more about the manufacturing process, and risk being taken advantage of because of it.
"Some fabricator because they know you are a beginner or the starter in the design area so they just don't tell you the truth... For example, something can be made in very basic technology and probably costs $100 but they just tell you that it is difficult for this shape... and they're just gonna increase the estimate costs." - Participant 5
SYNTHESIS
Insights were added to a Miro board and grouped by related topics. These informed design opportunity spaces.
Based on the research and findings, it became clear that finding and learning how to work with manufacturers is the greatest challenge for target users. This presented the most valuable problem space for the design.
Interview insights and quotes grouped by topic on a Miro board
From the research analysis, four primary design opportunity spaces emerged:
The target user's journey through the problem space
Utilize the designers' community and personal network
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Build learning models and provide informational resources
Integrate face-to-face communication dynamics online to build trust
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Overcome non language-based communication barriers*
*This was scoped out during the early stages of ideation
IDEATION
Ideation generated 60 ideas around potential solutions to the problem space. These were grouped by related themes and judged on practicality, relevance and value to the target user.
Three designs rose to the top:
The design concepts for the solution, grouped together by theme
A networking platform, where designers can connect with and learn from their peers
A mentoring platform, where experienced designers can provide guidance to users*
An online trade show, where designers can examine and chat with manufacturers
*This was added after focus on language barriers was scoped out
The initial user flows for Weaver's primary features
Weaver's finalized information architecture
Conducted four usability tests on low-fidelity prototypes of design solution. The test consisted of navigating Weaver's primary user paths: browsing the forum, finding a mentor and connecting with a manufacturer through the showcase platform.
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Three design changes were made following the tests:
Community forums
Mentoring platform
Mentoring platform
Initial design
Users must join a forum as part of their initial onboarding.
Mentors could only be filtered by their years of experience and product industry.
Users were prompted to pay the mentor for their time after they had finish helping them.
User
Preference
Users want to be able to browse the forums before joining any of them or making an account.
Users wanted to find mentors whose background and experiences specifically matched their wants and needs.
Users wanted to show gratitude for their mentor's help, but felt that simply paying them would diminish the experience.
Design
Change
Users can browse any of the forums before making an account, but won't be able to post until they do.
Mentor profile was expanded to include additional information about their areas of expertise.
Modified payment prompt language to "buy them a cup of coffee as thanks" to make it feel more personable.
The name Weaver was inspired by the Sociable Weaver, a species of bird in South Africa which build communal nest structures. This felt in line with the large network of designers Weaver fosters through its features.
VIDEO
OVERVIEW
Video overview of Weaver, submitted as part of the final project deliverable. Voiceover done by myself
LOOKING BACK / MOVING FORWARD
OWNING A PROJECT
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First time working on a project of this scale where each aspect and deliverable was entirely up to me and my team to determine and complete, with no managerial oversight.
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Working alongside teammates to figure out what we had to do and ensure each of us was comfortable deciding when we were done and what was still left to complete was extremely valuable.
MANAGING SCOPE
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When creating our own project from the ground up, it was very easy to have many grand ideas we'd want to implement.
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Time constraints made it impossible to fully incorporate each idea, so we had to know what and when to cut something.
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Now much more adept at identifying concepts with the most value and which ones the overall project can succeed without.
LEARNING FROM PEERS
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Team was very multidisciplinary, with each of us being experts in our own respective areas but also aware of where we could learn more from each other.
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Great opportunity to clearly see what I didn't know and learn how to become comfortable with it.
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Equally exciting opportunity to further develop my skills, and learn how to best guide others to become proficient in my areas of expertise.