‘Building’ Communication
An opportunity to ‘LEVEL’ up
Welcome everyone to the ongoing saga of Taz’s World (that would be me). Previously, I wrote a brief introduction of how I departed from the land of User Interface and began my journey through the realm of User Experience. Within that article I briefly touched upon what user experiences entails, coupled with the design exercise the instructors gave us. In this exercise we were to simulate and revitalized a marketplace website that better reflected the on site location. And whoooo weeee, that website REALLY needed to overhauled. However, the thing was that we could only build it up to a mid-fidelity level. Meaning it was more bare boned, only highlighting the primary features that would attract the user to actually visit the location. After all, it was a design exercise for the UX group. This time round though, we are going to face some real tangible challenge!
S.S
Once the design exercise was complete, it was finally time for our instructors to assign us our Clients. At last, we finally get to work with live people! I, of course, have already worked with three other community partners beforehand, but this time, I get to be in the drivers seat for UX. Sara Sibylle, duo to Osama knew I was gun-ho to start client work.
Hailing from Singapore, Sara lived in a city where the temperature is at a constant annual temperature of 31C. It is a place where you can walk around without having to worry about safety. A city full of financial towers and ‘affordable’ cars.
But instead of being one of the many power suits working in glass towers, she paved her own path. Her mastery in User Experience is exceptional and worldly. She offers alternative views to how certain segments of a population may approach different subject matters. She will also fire at point blank if you blatantly ignore the foundational elements of UX. It may come across as jarring to some, but if we are to understand and learn the facets of users and developing constructs, you really can’t ignore the basic workings. When you see Sara, your first instinct (well mine only) is to pick her up and placed her into your front pocket. Be warned though, she will no sooner turn you to ashes before you would even have the chance to register your demise.
Thus Sara Sybille, a seer of UX, assigned us to our community partner.
Bring forth the Clients
When it comes to projects, our instructors really try to make sure that the groups assembled are paired with suitable community partners. You see RED Academy doesn’t just arbitrarily pick anyone who signs up to be a community partner. They are vetted and screened to ensure that their projects bring value to the students learning experience, not to mention to build up their portfolios (mine included). Clients should also be willing to have their projects critiqued through case studies. Sometimes during the three week speed runs, students might encounter hurdles and the best method to organize their thoughts about those matters are through case studies. Uh oh, am I suggesting that the community partner assigned to my group was difficult?
Psych! Just kidding. In all my time at RED Academy, I have had nothing but amazing clients. Every community partner whom I’ve worked with are very gracious and accommodating. They put a lot of faith in us, and rightfully so. We truly and sincerely want to ensure that what we give back to them is the manifestation of their project goals and expectations. When I move on from RED, my desires are for prospective companies to look at the amassed portfolio and read up on my client case studies that I’ve published. I’m sure some may find the writing style a wee bit casual for their liking, with others getting a kick out of it. However, I really do want companies to see that these case studies do in fact show that the best intentions are put forth; to ensure that a client’s web, mobile app and beyond are developed for their users to access and navigate their locations at ease.
Time to LEVEL up
This past decade, we have seen major advancements in mobile apps and their utilizations. From hailing a ride, ordering yummy food to liking(with envy) picture posts, we are integrated with our smart devices and the apps that we choose to install in them. For millions of users there are multitudes of combinations of apps we choose to install. Some are simply for leisure, others are more work orientated. Within those segments, they can be categorized based on needs and wants of users. Enter LEVEL
Developed by the dynamic duo Riley O’Brien and Leeroy Beeby , these gentlemen teamed up to create a mobile app that specializes in communication within the construction/engineering industry. The beauty of the LEVEL app is that it can scale from project to project. The user has the ability to encompass all tasks within that project as well as encapsulate all documents and images relating to the project into a singular location. Sounds something similar to apps that already exist, like Whatsapp, Slack or any other project management tools like Asana or Monday. Hmmm I would say Yes and No to that assessment. Those applications serve more as an indirect competitors as they have features not suited for the construction industry. Level is orientated for folks that need to make sure that building projects ranging from residential to commercial properties are properly handled and adjusted for. These especially come into light in case of any particular delays or setbacks. As you walk around all of Toronto, you can clearly see a multitude of construction projects happening throughout our fair city. What we don’t see is the amount of cross channel communications that happens during these projects. Contractors, Foremen, Engineers, Architects, Admins, Plumbers, anyone relating to getting structures built, all have to communicate to one another. More often than not, each department have different communication methods to deliver information. This can certainly create massive breakdowns because information can be lost or misplaced, costing time , money and sadly even incurring casualties. In fact, I had sent Riley an article in regards to the Florida University Bridge Collapse, which resulted in six fatalities. The takeaway on that article was that it was due to improper handling of communication between onsite construction workers and engineers. Cracks were discovered and dismissed as it assumed to that it was within tolerance. The truth was thought that the tolerance level was grossly miscalculated. Six lives were lost because of it. Tragedies such as these can be preventable and this is one of the main things Level advocates on their website.
LEVEL Team Assemble
The Level app has a lot of promise, but there is a drawback and it has nothing to do with the app itself. In fact it had to do with the level of oscillation in traffic (see what I did there)that occurs on their website. Riley and Leeroy attend many conventions and hold meetings to get people within the construction/engineering industry to link up to the site to either view or directly download the app. However, there is a significant drop of user traffic after the fact. Consequently, the site stagnates and the seo (search engine optimization) downgrades. This means the search engine pushes the site to the back pages. Put it this way, how often does anyone go beyond the second page on the Google search results?
SEOs are extremely important for websites. The better the content your website contains, the more likely users will frequent to your site. Better yet, if users share the contents of the website with one another, with app downloads, the search engine will automatically start boosting your presence. This something that Riley and Leeroy are aware of, but due to workload(they are only a team of two) they are unable to properly assess alterations that should occur within their website.
This is where they turned to RED Academy. Through their sources they were referred by someone who was familiar with the cooperatives efforts that the institution provides. In turn our instructors partnered me with Cerise McKay and Jon Maccaull to investigate, and subsequently develop a newer version of their website. Chiara Plastina, our UI designer would then breathe life into the new prototype. By the combined efforts of my team members, we would hope that Riley’s and Leeroy’s new website would theoretically stabilize the oscillation, increase user traffic and importantly optimize the SEO.
Never Surrender to the Challenge and Raise the Opportunity
Oh I think time for a wee little break don’t you think? Anyone who has read my case studies so far, has probably detected that I’m very much nostalgic to certain aspects of the 1980’s. This case study won’t be any different, so if you guys are still on your laptops, have good little stretch, rotate your neck, press your shoulders…and listen to music to get your blood flowing.
Alright now that music has gotten you back into the zone, let’s continue forward.
As the sub header indicates, the Level team had a challenge to face. To my astute readers, you guys probably have figured it out. But since this is my case study, I do need to point out the Challenge plus to divulge the Opportunity at hand.
The Challenge goes as such:
- The current website does not generate many leads
- Traffic increases after conferences but do not convert to acquisitions
When it comes to the Opportunity:
- Create a website that is clear, informative and engaging
- Clearly explain the product
- Encourage downloads and demo bookings
Some Assembly Required
In order for us to engage the opportunities at hand we as UX Designers have been instilled the methods to thoroughly conduct a successful development of a viable product. As you can see below the method goes as such
To kick off the Level project, we had to collect data to validate the opportunities that we intended to create. I’ve mentioned in my prior articles that it is necessary to create surveys and obtain interviews, as we have to figure out what users need and what is required for them to successfully utilize a website. Collecting survey information was rather arduous as many within the construction industry generally avoid using dedicated digitals tools. Seems rather surprising but to be honest, this is quite common. The construction industry is as old as time itself. One might assume that with advancement in technology, the industry would be quick to adapt. It is quite contrary though. Riley and Leeroy have faced the wariness when they started to market their tool. Even a post from last year at construction connect reveals that one of the top four challenges the industry faces is in fact adapting to new technologies.
So we weren’t too surprised that we had a slow start in obtaining relevant information. But fortunately after much toiling we managed to gather 51 survey responses, given the amount of time we had on us. Hats off to Jon for tapping into a secret channel of industry workers, and kudos to Chiara. Her significant other happens to be a contractor, thus we were able to obtain his thoughts based on the line of questions we asked him. Below is the collective data information that we were able to extrapolate.
You can see 59% of construction folks do not use a dedicated tool for communications while 53% use multiple platforms to communicate to one another. That’s a lot of broken telephones happening right there!
A lot of this has to do with the fact that most within the industry, shy away from ‘fancy tech’. Be it young or old, for some people, technology might as well be a foreign extraterrestrial language. The few that do adopt newer tools still come across hurdles in terms of usage. And so we noted three valued features that were in the majority of our survey responses. Those being that the digital tool should be easy to use, high quality and importantly reliable.
With our treasure trove of data, our next steps were to see what sort of features competitors have out on the market that rivals to Level. It would be quite foolish for UX Designers not to do so. We not only have to see key features that competitors tout, but heuristic aspect as well. When I say heuristics, I don’t mean ‘holistic’, although they are distantly related to one another. When we evaluated Level, we needed to gain an understanding as to what was missing within their site. What was not being leveraged that other competitors are maybe doing successfully in? In parallel, an affinity diagram is formed to find out the relative relations to what users wants versus to what content and information that companies place on their websites. We drafted out our C&C analysis and placed it next to our affinity chart based off our survey.
As the above C&C chart indicates, only two direct competitors have all the marked boxes wheres as the other two had a couple of missed ones. As for Level, well sadly, they have a couple of missed boxes for them too. Those being that their product was hard to identify on their landing page, no video demonstration as to the nature of the product. And lastly, no verified testimonials by someone using their product. You can also observe with the affinity diagram that we grouped some key indicators based off of the survey questions. On second row of grouped data, it is apparent that Data Management, Work Flow Integration and Connectivity/Reliability are some key factors when their industries require a certain tool. These are something that matches up with two of the competitors when comes to what they list on their websites. Unfortunately the Level website misses those marks as the app does in fact have tools but does not communicate those tools effectively. So what does that mean for Level? Can they survive within the competitive webscape?
I think Riley and Leeroy just cringed, but in actuality Level is doing just fine. Remember their app is still the new kid on the block. No one ever starts out with guns blazing and those that do are far and few in between. The two creators are hard working. But even they require assistance to help them communicate with the world of their product. That’s why we were there to help them out. To reiterate, we were called upon to help them generate and sustain leads and help create a more communicative website that conveys their products abilities. And before all of that, we first must find weaknesses. And there is no shame in weakness. Weakness has the possibilities to be harnessed, honed in and raised up to levels of strength.
A PERSONAS JOURNEY
As product designers, no matter what the research is, a persona is one of the anchor points to viably communicate as to the nature of product uses and requirements. There are chatters in regards to if personas are even viable to begin with, and there are some good case points. However, a vast majority will agree that no matter what, personas have to be listed in order for companies to understand to whom and why they are targeting selected user. Now I won’t go into details of personas. I’ve already reached record level word counts, so let me just give you two images to show off what we did for Level and their Persona.
This Persona was to explain to the creators as to where their current websites stands. This is someone who has a very large project at hand and realizes he needs to find new ways to better his business based on his new project. So in due diligence he does his research but when it came to Levels website, it failed to reach his expectations. That is not quite the ending Riley and Leeroy want. You can see however, the potential opportunities such as an optimized SEO and contact form that could one day alter the journey map for the persona. Most people like seeing happy endings right and we want Level to have that too.
CONSTRUCTION STARTED
Alright everyone, we are almost at the end! Just a wee bit of more things to say before I sign off. By now I probably have one or two readers left on this article. The rest have decided that the abyss was a better option for them.
As it stands, the current website has not altered and it would be detrimental for them to take it down even if we are working on a whole new look. Gone are the times where people would simply makeshift a substitute website on Geocities and call it a day. That sort of band aid method will not fly. So, to start off the first leg of the construction is nailing down their site map, after which we would proceed onto the low fidelity (‘scribbles’ as I would like to call it).
From the low fidelity screenshot you can see that CTA (Call to Action) is prominently being portrayed. This will be more evident onwards from the mid fidelity to the high fidelity. At the moment the ‘scribbles’ give you, the reader, a visual clue as to what we are going for.
Nailing down the Mid Fi
I always get excited when we start putting together the mid-fidelity. It is like playing lego, you constantly tinker around the basic shapes and placements to see how things come together. The software of choice was Figma. I have certainly come to respect this tool. It shines the brightest when it comes to the key feature of collaborating within a single space thanks to its sharing capabilities. Now I still adore Adobe XD because it has its animation capabilities, but the collaborating aspect of Figma is much smoother and intuitive. I am sure that Adobe is working to fix their collaboration feature*nudge nudge, wink wink*.
We started to expand out the valued features that were essential to make LEVEL step onto the podium alongside its rivals. One of the aspects that we did alter when assembling the High Fidelity was to alter a modal.
The obvious change was that we eliminated the time selection. As to why? Well it’s pretty logical when you remember that the two creators are still new to the scene, they want to be available and flexible to meet with anyone at anytime. It would be rather bold for them to limit the availability, especially when the interested party would most likely be free after working hours. Not to mention that Riley and Leeroy did mention in passing that most of their meetings happen over dinner/drinks. Now who wouldn’t enjoy a mix of business and something to sate your belly.
Construction Complete
At long last we are ending, well near the end. Just a little more chit chat on my part and you may close this tab. Once we secured and primed the mid fidelity, Chiara, the powerhouse of UI, started her work in ‘leveling’ up our content.
I won’t get into the UI element of explanation as it is Chiara prerogative to discuss her thoughts and processes in landing up to a high fidelity. However, I will give some context on the arrival to the colour scheme. Two of her moodboard colour palettes were merged together as well adding on Levels colour palette too. She also merged contemporary geometric lines and texture with organic cues that are the current trends within digital spaces.
Chiara really did an exceptional task in getting these texture to be so eye catching and trendy. It makes me proud that I have someone on my team who is just as passionate as I was when I had my time to shine in UI. I still love UI but now I merged and ‘Leveled’ up with UX.
At last! I can the debut the final design!!
Everyone, I present you, Level V.2
Needless to say I was just ecstatic on how everything was executed so effectively. My group and I really felt we had brought out Levels true essence and the apps capabilities. More importantly we hit all three of ours main goals. We created a website that was clear, informative and engaging. We captured the explanation of the product and its capabilities. Lastly, we ensured that we encouraged downloads and demo bookings. Should our Persona ever take a look at the site again, I’m pretty sure he would immediately book a meeting with our creators and download the app. He would no sooner find that the app meets his requirements and would definitely leave kind words about Level. With recommendations and demo downloads, Google’s SEO would definitely bump up Levels presence.
Our clients were very happy that their site was revitalized to this extent which was beyond their expectations. In fact, they were gracious to even post on their LinkedIn about our efforts. As mentioned earlier, this was my first client project wearing the UX hard hat. Just being prideful of the task at hand, we managed to build a ‘skyscraper’.
A small paragraph about my teammates. We were in sync with one another at all times and really addressed the subject matter. We communicated our thoughts and laid out our plans together. All assigned tasks were delivered in spades. It was a pleasure to work alongside them.
Thank you readers for being so patient with me. I know story time isn’t for everyone but I can’t help but to give my insights and musing. Currently, I am already working on another community partner projects. It’ll be based on a learning app and I’m quite excited to discuss that topic when the time comes. Best be ready for another long read that may be just as long as this one.
Oh before I sign off, I am getting my new website up and running soon. As of this moment, I have my adobe portfolio to suffice on. It’s not much but it is better than a Geocities website. I promise that it will be an ‘outrageous’ website!
Farewell!
