Role: UX/UI Designer (Freelance)
Responsibilities:
- Competitor analysis and research on design trends
- Redesign the user onboarding experience based on industry best practices
- Revamp the design of the app
- Create user journeys, wireframes, and mock-ups
- Conduct user testing
Tools used: Figma, iPad & Apple Pencil (wireframing)
Timeline: November 2019 — February 2020
Background
Livshows is a Vancouver based startup that provides music lovers with a ‘one-stop shop’ to find music events, buy tickets, and share concert experiences with friends all in one app.
Note: Livshows has since pivoted into AR (augmented reality) for creatives, artists, and bands.
Goal
Improve the in-app experience to make it easier for a user to sign-up and share insights on design best practices.
The Design Process
As a startup with only one other designer, there was no formal design process in place at the time. The process I decided to follow was a simplified version of the Google Ventures Design Sprint.
1. Understand
This stage entailed learning more about the app, the target users and the users’ goals. It also consisted of assessing the current app experience and learning more about competitors in the space.
To understand the current app experience I mapped out each step the user might take to get onto the platform.
To learn more about competitors, I analyzed their product experience to find commonalities in each set-up and user flow. I also researched general best practices around user onboarding and familiarized myself with common trends. After all, it isn’t always about reinventing the wheel — sometimes it’s best to stick with designs that users are already familiar with.
2. Diverge
With the knowledge from the first phase, I came up with multiple different solutions on how to improve the user onboarding experience. Similarly, I came up with different solutions for how to improve the design of specific app screens.
3. Decide
At this point, I worked with the CEO to gather feedback on my initial designs and implement any changes. From there, we decided on a direction to move forward with.
4. Prototype
Taking the feedback from the previous stages, I created simple mockups in Figma.
5. Test
I conducted user tests to gather feedback on the flow of the new onboarding experience. This validated that the proposed design was an improvement from the previous design. It also provided more insight on additional changes to be made.
Reflection & Key Learnings
- Gathering feedback when designing is key. Get feedback early and often.
- Be sure to clearly articulate your design process and keep stakeholders in the loop of what you are doing and why certain designs were proposed.
- I had a lot of fun working with this startup. It was my first freelance design gig and I learned a lot about mobile designs and design processes!
