I was the project lead and sole designer in charge of user experience design and user interface design.
Schedulability is a concept that was created by combining two primary functions a content scheduler + an accountability buddy.
Schedulability features social media management, visual scheduling, analytics, and networking opportunities. All of these features were included to empower small and medium businesses to engage with their customers through social media, drive traffic to the business, and help empower business owners through the community of like-minded individuals to help them create systems of accountability and seek resources to drive their social media engagement.
How many times have you seen a product go viral and sell out almost immediately?
Social media has to a certain degree revolutionized and democratized the marketing space. Gone are the days when you needed a big marketing budget to get your product or service out there. All you need is one viral video or post to sell out a business, transforming the lives of the business and its owner seemingly overnight.
It is easy to see that the marketing landscape in the last decade has significantly shifted towards utilizing social media as the most powerful marketing tool. And social media platforms are taking heed by moving towards being more of a business-friendly platform, with Facebook Business analytics feature and Instagram integrating a shop feature into their platform. This being the case, a lot of entrepreneurs still have a difficult time utilizing social media as a way to market their businesses. A lot of entrepreneurs and content creators struggle to stay consistent on social media. Why is that? Why do some small business owners utilize social media marketing while others don’t? These are the questions that we are seeking to find the answers to.
- Business owners
- Creative small business owners
- Aspiring Content Creators
- Age 21 - 60
- Express interest in learning how to grow their small business
- Uses social media for business purposes
After the initial user research and user interview were conducted, we took the results and created two personas based on the characteristics of our target users. They were named, Kelly and Leah, respectively. Creating personas really helped us to stay focused on the users' needs. Alongside creating personas, we also created empathy maps. Empathy mapping helped to give us perspective, by putting ourselves into the shoes of our users. The user interviews are what helped us to develop these empathy maps because after observing users' behavior, we were able to understand what users may say, do, think, and feel.
After compiling all the primary and secondary research, I decided to create some "How might we" questions to help guide us through the next phase of the design process.
1. How might we relieve the stress that business owners/content creators feel when it comes to marketing on social media?
2. How might we help business owners/content creators create a more balanced relationship with social media?
3. How might we reduce the amount of time people spend posting on multiple platforms?
4. How might we reduce the feeling of stress around creating content?
5. How might we help people create a content posting schedule?
After conducting and synthesizing my research I was able to define the problem that I needed to solve. And it was time to move on and start brainstorming design solutions.
The two methods I used to begin thinking of solutions are Laddering and IDEO method. Laddering is an ideation method where you imagine a ladder. You can move up or down in levels on specificity to explore different facets of the problem space. And IDEO’s main tenet is empathy for the end-user. In order to gain this perspective, I tried to observe other users and saw how they interacted with social media apps and current market solutions.
Hand-drawn wireframes
After creating the first high-fidelity prototype of the Schedulability App, I presented my design to the stakeholders. I was able to receive some really great feedback about my design. In terms of the next steps, I made the recommendation that we run a usability test using this prototype. In order to make sure our target audience is able to use it as it was designed to be used. The stakeholders agreed to the recommendation and we moved forward with the usability testing.
After testing the product and validating it with some additional usability testing, I presented the product to the stakeholders. They were satisfied with the completed demo and approved the design. And finally, the product was then handed off to the developers.
