01 - Project Brief

Problem Context 🧐

Online platforms are increasingly popular for freelancing. It's an easy and effective way of freelancing, but it comes with a cost. The main issue is people that don't engage into personal contact and choose to stay online only. The term for those people is "digital nomads". This results in less and less human contact.

Those who chronically lack social contact are more likely to experience elevated levels of stress and inflammation. This can undermine the well-being of nearly every bodily system, including the brain.

It is said that we spend about 45 percent of that time using technology. Missed interactions such as professional connections for a potential letter of recommendation are some side-effects.

02 - User Research

Find people and speak to them

Having a user-centred approach, I visited several places to find freelancers and clients to ask them more about their experiences.

Results

It turns out that a job is done a lot better when there is a good connection between clients and freelancers which because it easier to communicate the message in person.

A popular opinion was:
"Would rather collaborate with someone I like".

User journey

Personas

03 - Product Research

Competitor Research

Combining methods used by professional websites and dating apps in order to bring professionals together.

Findings

Good use of filters.
Conversations on an online call.
Feature "People around" me on dating apps but not on freelancing websites.
Feature "Common interests" on dating apps to draw attention to someone.

05 - Designing the website

Sketching some wireframes

After I figured out how the service works, I had to sketch some screens to rapidly solve some problems such as making a good use of space for the filters.

Low fidelity wireframes and happy path

The wireframes were made to generate quick feedback before creating the high fidelity prototype.

Style guide

After I had a clear idea about the layout, the steps to someone's journey and how the screens connect, I had to add some "magic" to the project and make it look attractive, whilst also keeping the brand identity throughout.

User Testing

After creating the prototype, I had to test and check the usability of it.

The finale

Final screenshots and the interactive prototype

Spark is a service that helps entrepreneurs find freelancers in creative fields. Spark's goal is to tackle the problem of people choosing to communicate with a client online only. The service offers a great matching method with favourite cafe suggestions and an around me discovery range. The way to encourage people to meet up, is by giving them discounts to go to a cafe for a meeting.

This is achieved by booking a meeting through the website and receiving an email with a QR code. The QR code can then be presented at the venue and reduce the price for the drinks or snacks bought.

06 - Key takeaways

What did I learn?

How freelancers find their clients and how clients find their freelancers. What surprised me the most was the fact that a lot of those people actually prefer to go online to find the right person, even though they prefer to find someone bases localy.
When interviewing both sides and trying some freelancing platforms myself, I was able to familiarise myself with remote working and understand how freelancers manage their clients.
My exercise with UX/UI practices, going from top to bottom to finalise a design. I had the chance to develop all the necessary documents to support my design proposal such as wireframes, user journeys and prototypes. I also had the chance to organise my own user research and user testing sessions in order to get the findings to help me with my design process.
To familiarise myself with all the different methods to use filters on a digital product, especially filtering people is particularly hard to figure out a way to make a good use of filters and how to display them. I was able to find out about specific ways to localise the research by using the classic discovery radius or "around me" and after that, it had to be associated with creating partnerships. When it comes to doing business with someone, you want to know price, availability and speciality. I also learned how to display these filtering methods in different ways, such as accordions, radio buttons, checkboxes, chips and laying them out in top bars or side bars.

Vaggos Angelis

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CASE STUDY - 2019

Spark: Helping entrepreneurs find a freelancer locally