I Spent My December Holidays Helping An SME | Floral Horizon
As I waited for the first Zoom meeting on what to expect in the next few weeks, I felt some trepidation, but there was also a lot of excitement…
The CareerContact Pilot Programme was conducted over seven weeks in November and December 2020. CareerContact collaborated with a travel and tourism startup, Tribe Tours; an edtech language learning startup, Perapera; a kopi hawker, Coffee Break; a seafood wholesaler, Guang’s Fresh Mart; a floral artist, Floral Horizons; and a bicycle sole proprietor store, Hon Kah Trading. After acquiring basic digital skills, students carried out content strategy and digital marketing projects, market and consumer research, UX design and brand marketing for these SMEs under the guidance of mentors.
Week 1
Week 1 of the Pilot Programme was spent trying frantically to absorb as much information as I could on the Thinkific courses written by our mentors. I was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge that we were expected to absorb, but heaved a sigh of relief when I found out that the mentors didn’t have a problem with how fast we learnt, as long as we showed progress. I am very grateful for that because it’s different from how things are in school, where everyone is expected to keep up with the pace of the class.
Despite the challenges and bottlenecks I faced in Skills Week, I managed to grasp the logic behind User Experience (UX) and User Interfaces (UI). I completed a simple website and walked out of class wiser and with a better understanding of what we were about to experience in the next 6 weeks.
Week 2
Skills Week was over, and now we were on to the real thing. My group was assigned to work with a Japanese floral arrangement (Ikebana) and pottery SME, known as Floral Horizon. There were 2 other people in my group, Ariff and Yizhou. We arranged a meeting with the owner, Mdm Chua, and discussed what she wanted to achieve out of the programme, her mission and her customer profile, among others such as her method for pricing products and lessons and her experience in Ikebana and pottery. We also received and downloaded all the pictures of Mdm Chua’s artworks in a Google Photos album for our future use.
Week 3
We conducted user research to find out more about the customers who patronise Floral Horizon. We did this by looking at the profiles of the followers on Floral Horizon’s Instagram account as well as those who interacted with the pictures on Floral Horizon’s Facebook page. We classified the users into different categories based on the content of their accounts. Most of the followers were also interested in Ikebana.
Aside from that, we also used a Google form, Card Sort and Tree Jack from Optimal Workshop to collect data to confirm Floral Horizon’s primary customers.
We conducted a brief competitor analysis in Weeks 3 to 4 to find out who we were up against in the market using Fave as a research tool. We researched competitors for floral arrangement lessons, Ikebana lessons and pottery lessons, and inserted our results into spreadsheets.
Our mentor also pointed out to us that in most of Floral Horizon’s social media posts, there was no clear call to action, which was something we had to raise to the client.
During the week, we delegated the roles: Yizhou would be in charge of the wireframing on Figma, Ariff would be in charge of the marketing campaign and I would be in charge of setting up the website on Squarespace. Following that, we started to create mood boards and our lo-fi wireframe.
Week 4
After our weekly meeting to review all our deliverables, Yizhou started to work on the hi-fi wireframe, designed covers for Floral Horizon’s Instagram highlights and made a rough release schedule for various marketing posts. We planned on posting details about the lesson trials on Floral Horizon’s Instagram page highlights, and the highlight covers were made using Canva by Ariff. My task was to adjust the Squarespace website to match the wireframe once Yizhou was finished.
Yizhou presented the landing and about page of the hi-fi wireframe during our second meeting (we met on Sundays, 4–5pm). Unfortunately, Yizhou had to redo the wireframe because they did not match the theme we had in mind. Together with our mentor’s guidance, we created a new mood board to display more of Japanese culture. The colour scheme would be pale, pastel, woodish colours, with a minimalistic theme. Ariff showed us the Canva designs (which he would later adjust to the new theme) for the 2 insta-highlights we planned to create and his plan for the posting schedule. We also analysed the Google form results and card sort results.
Later that week, we met up with Mdm Chua to suggest some changes to her website. These include using posts that match our theme and pictures that were less cluttered.
Week 5
By this week, the hi-fi wireframe and the cover pages were finished and I could start on the Squarespace website. I worked on it continuously until the deadline with constant input from Yizhou who created new versions of the wireframe.
Mdm Chua’s website was not up to date and I struggled to figure out how to use or insert different features with the help of support tutorials and videos. After many attempts, I decided to create a new website using the newer version of Squarespace and things went much more smoothly.
I experienced other little hiccups along the way such as:
1. Adding icons to the content.
Since Squarespace doesn’t have in-built icons, I had to embed them in code from an external source.
2. Matching content blocks to the wireframe on Figma.
Squarespace has fixed grid placements, disallowing users from moving elements as they please. I had to find alternatives instead of following the wireframe exactly.
3. Creating a booking system with Squarespace
As a beginner, it took me quite a while to get the hang of the tool, but I managed it.
4. Working with unsuitable images
The pictures we were given to work with had a height to width ratio that was incompatible with the length of the content I added to the block. It took some time to find suitable pictures to insert or to use as backgrounds.
I went through quite a few drafts as a result of these challenges and required some assistance from our mentor. For the final product, we kept to a minimalist theme and pastel or pale, earthy colours to mimic the traditional Japanese theme. The website had 6 different pages: Landing, About, Ikebana Trial Sign-up, Pottery Trial Sign-up, Contact and Lesson Sign-Up.
During the next few group meetings, our mentor suggested various areas of improvement such as showing the hierarchy, getting rid of redundant elements and making the text more visible on top of the background, which I attended to later on and made sure to check and follow the updated wireframes. Ariff made a sample post on Floral Horizon’s Instagram page with an ideal caption to promote the brand and put up the stories that he planned.
The Final Product
This is the final prototype for the new and improved website:
The landing page introduces the 2 services that Floral Horizon provides, the mission and reviews.
The about page introduces Ikebana, goes into detail about Mdm Chua’s mission for Floral Horizon, and lists all of Mdm Chua’s qualifications.
The Ikebana lesson page provides details of the Ikebana trial lesson package, pictures of Mdm Chua at exhibitions, a time-lapse video of an Ikebana trial lesson, examples of students’ works and frequently asked questions respectively.
The pottery lesson page provides details about the pottery trial lesson package, showcases images of Mdm Chua’s works and exhibitions and frequently asked questions respectively.
The contact page allows users to send requests or feedback to Mdm Chua.
On the lesson sign up page, users can choose which appointment they want to book before choosing a date and time.
Wrapping up
After the Career Contact Pilot Programme, I suddenly felt listless and dazed, unsure about what to do with all this time. Compared to the constant stream of revisions I had gone through, this freedom felt unfamiliar, having nothing to think about and nothing to prepare for.
I learnt that change is something that doesn’t stop happening, and that’s okay. Throughout these seven weeks our wireframes, marketing campaign and actual website had gone through many changes, like changing the wireframe and making multiple edits for user convenience and appeal. Change may be difficult to accept but we grow and learn through it in any situation.
CareerContact is an ed-tech platform designed to bridge the gap between school and work. We help students develop digital skills and connect them with SMEs in Southeast Asia. Feel free to reach out to us at CareerContact.cc or check out our courses on Thinkific.
