Joycraft is a new startup business building a skill finding and exploring website. Creators and investors would like to identify a user/customer base and what would be most valuable and engaging for those users in order to establish customer satisfaction and engagement, which will therefore increase traffic and/or revenue.
I wanted to better understand what influences decisions for choosing a skill-learning platform and continuing to use that platform in order to design a site that provides the most value to users.
My efforts resulted in the creation and refinement of a mobile-first responsive website prototype that received positive feedback from prototype testers, reinforcing my interpretation of the data.
To better understand the market for online skill finding, what provides value to users, and what impacts choosing and continuing to use a platform, I conducted competitive analysis and interviewed potential users.
I did competitive analysis to explore the functionality and benefits offered by similar platforms. I compared several data points, with an emphasis on features, to discover areas where Joycraft’s user experience should emulate these platforms, ways in which it could improve upon existing platforms, and niche-filling opportunities.
I interviewed 5 people who had started or continued a hobby in the last 6 months. Common benefits and motivations for having hobbies were similar among subject, and there were standouts for what hindered follow-through.
I determined that the user I’m designing for is a busy professional who wants to take some time for themselves by learning new skills and hobbies. They prefer online learning because they can do it on their schedule. Their go-to resources are blogs and YouTube. They are easily discouraged when they can’t troubleshoot or progress.
“I love challenging myself with new skills and doing something that’s good for my brain.”
“I started my biking hobby for health but it’s become a part of my identity.”
How might we reduce decision fatigue for people excited to learn something new?
How might we keep busy adults motivated to cultivate new skills and hobbies?
The project constraints included a short timeline, awareness of developer constraints, a limited pool for user interviews and usability tests, and the need to produce all content and a full design system.
Users sorted interests into groups and organized other content pages:
The most important task flows provide ways to find a suitable interest. Initially I developed flows for finding via a search from the homepage and via an elaborate dropdown menu.
Knowing that this was a mobile-first approach, I decided to use low fidelity wireframes to think about some desktop layouts, created mid-fidelity wireframes to think through screens for mobile and tablet, and created high fidelity wireframes for high-priority mobile flows and prototyping.
I sketched out 12 logo ideas and further developed three before choosing the "joy craft" as the logo.
For the logo and H1-H3 headings, I chose Ultra (from Google Fonts) because it was bold and aligned with the brand values: creativity, confidence, fun, motivation, and optimism. For smaller subheadings (H4 and below) as well as body text, I chose the typeface Inter (also from Google Fonts).
High fidelity wireframing required further refinement, getting things "pixel perfect," and applying the branding I created using my UI component library. Bringing the brand values into the mix helped focus on the user goals yet again.
Feedback from my mentor and in group critiques helped smooth any remaining rough edges; finally, screen flows were applied to make it ready for user testing.
View prototypeI tested 3 task flows for getting to a specific hobby page (primary user goal). My measures for success were task completion with no errors and feedback that the site is easy to use.
Results were successful overall:
Based on feedback regarding the search flow, I decided to create a more consistent search pattern — searching from the top of a page or while the dropdown menu is engaged (or any other context not yet designed) opens a search modal:
Going through a thorough UX design process clarified which skills I already possess and which I should become more familiar with. In my previous work I've built many responsive websites, created several brands, and worked with clients to meet their pre-determined goals, but for this project I prioritized the end-user and took steps to center their wants, needs, and experiences.
If I had more time I would build out more flows and test more patterns in the prototype and do more usability testing before moving on to a production website with a development team. The scope and timeline of the project was limited, but I would love to develop it further if the stakeholders want to move forward with the project.
