IMHTP

TRANSIT EXPERIENCE + OPINIONS

SURVEY DATA

We contacted avid commuters to find out how they felt about local public transit, important features they would love in an updated application and what problems they faced during trip planning.
Next Stop Transit Survey
  • Digital Survey with limitations due to COVID19
  • 14 Responses
  • Conclusions : Focus on key feature development to ensure that users are able to execute successful and simple navigation of a trip via varied route types.

Case Study + Insight Analysis

Project Brief

Create a central portal for African diasporic people to find information on tech opportunities, education and community resources for technologists.
IMHTP : A Black centric Tech portal focused on education, career placement + virtual event community building.
Goal : Provide a space for black digital creatives to find jobs, hire for positions, find out information about education opportunities + connect with the technology community.
Functions : Prospective Employees/Employers, Students + Professionals in the field are able to connect + create.
Problem : Lack of app centered + devoted resource or portal with black tech community in mind.
Solution : Create a portal with combined resources + details for black tech entrepreneurs
Inspiration : LinkedIn, BlackPlanet, Twitter, Indeed, Wherearetheblackdesigners.com + Hue Design Summit
Concept Inspiration : Imhotep, father of science + mathematics

PROBLEM

Lack of representative apps designed for Black Tech Community.

SOLUTION

Create a portal with combined resources for Black tech community members.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis

USER RESEARCH

User Insights + Data

Interviews
Immanuel, Arianne, Isaiah + Kraft Digital
At the discovery phase of my project, I conducted user interviews in order to get a better understanding of the problem.
Participants with passion
Quantitative Research
13 participants in initial phase of survey research.
4 participants in final stage of survey research and communicative interviews.
Users identified top 3 key features as :
Clear labeling for cards on home screen
Opportunity to upload/edit profile + additional data
Universe navigational tool
  • Additional developments called for an efficient search tool + category filter

Survey Participants + Commuters

SURVEYS

Identifying Target Audience
After we launched the MVP, we wanted to gather feedback from the existing users. We set up an online survey and asked participants to answer with honesty and as accurately as possible. Our responses garnered consistent results as projected by our original assumptions.
Results expressed 100% verification that black technologists feel that there are limited resources for themselves within the tech field, and that there are racial disparities in opportunity acquisition and access for black technologists within the technological industry as well.
This completely verifies our need for the application as an empowering and adaptive access resource for a marginalized community.

User Role + Path : Educator uploading a tutorial

PROFESSOR PATRICK DUNN

With different paths in mind, I created a specific persona that was centered in a professor seeking the opportunity to offer tutorials. This user would create a profile with their educator information and head to our education page to see what tutorials were listed and then navigate to our upload page to add their own content.

User Role + Path : Business seeking client

CYBER CYPHER

With different paths in mind, I created a specific persona that was centered in a black owned business seeking technologists to work for their company. This user would create a profile with their business information and head to our community page to filter their search and find actively seeking potential employees.

User Role + Path : Designer seeking a gig.

SADE OKEAFOR

With different paths in mind, I created a specific persona that was centered in a digital technologist seeking a short term gig. This user would create a profile with their resume, portfolio, location and interests, then head to the careers page to filter their search and find actively seeking businesses that are looking to hire for short term gigs.

User Role + Path : Designer seeking a gig.

FATIMAH CAMPBELL

With different paths in mind, I created a specific persona that was centered in a black woman technologist seeking a virtual event for black women technologists. This user would login and head to our events page to filter their search and find details about upcoming events. Then they would navigate to the calendar to make sure there were no conflicting events on their schedule.

User Flows

Multiple flows for overall efficiency + to create navigational success throughout the different features of the application + design.
User perspective is integral to key feature development and decisions on design elements.
I created pathways to success for the four highlighted paths.
User flows :
*User is educator wanting to share their course curriculum. 
*User is digital designer wanting to share their tutorials. 
*User wants to find short-term gig .
*User wants to browse virtual events for black women.

Card Sorting

I focused on analyzing the intention of the design by gearing the cards to both left-brain thinkers ( analytical) and right-brain thinkers (intuitive ). My goal here was to find out how to balance implementing key features with specific goals for users. Participants organized similarly but the greatest take-away was that users who were left-brain primary felt that data engagement (job success stats, reviews + query on site ) were great future developments for a further extended scope, and users who were right brain primary felt that creative engagement (games, galleries, digital art installments and contests) were great ideas to extend rewards and create long term engagement.

Visual Design

Simple / Bold + Clean

SKETCHES

My low fidelity sketches helped me structure the layout of my home screen, location of my menu and visualize how to use negative space as a tool for ensuring that users are not overwhelmed with cluttered items on each screen.

Wireframes

Iterations + Intentions
At the beginning of my design process I created wireframes for testing purposes.
Designing for the user.
Throughout the design process , I created a uniform set of wireframes that evolved as the project transformed. I focused on key features such as the global navigational tool, home screen cards and onboarding tour. These were to center the user experience in a catalyst like interaction where they learned, engaged and experienced the application with awareness of the attention to design elements.

USER TESTING

4 Participants + 100% Success.

Before launching the product, I did a testing round in order to reveal possible usability problems.

User testing insights provided us with detail about users personal connections to the application via face to face response (virtually) and initial reactions, as users navigated through the app there was a core understanding of basic functionality. Small elements such as back buttons and a fleshed out search function were topics of inquiry to which we explained the minimum viable product aspect and that this is a design and not fully coded software.

KNOWLEDGE MEETS DESIGN.

Important historical facts about Imhotep and how he was the inspiration for this application’s brand identity allowed for an extremely creative and informative onboarding tour.

Mood Board

OUTCOME

EXPERIENCE IMHTP

FINDINGS + CHALLENGES

My greatest findings focused on the connection between doing design that you are rooted in with passion. My challenges were in finding, choosing and engaging participants throughout the user survey phases. The project felt personal and important to me , as it not only met a general need but one that I have often been tasked with and have had to learn how to deal. I learned that simple and clean design are essential to efficient applications that will meet user accessibility needs and inspire users to connect and engage.

It is time to create an inclusive tech world.