UI Design, UX writing, User Research
BACKGROUND
Inlet is a growing new app making it easy for you to connect with your community. Business owners can start an online community. Some of the features included are starting conversations in chat and post format, producing self lead courses and posting events for their community members. Community members can join and participate within the platform without having to have a business themselves.
TOOLS
Figma

PROBLEM

The existing business profile page is not being utilized by customers creating a gap in Inlet's revenue opportunity. Additionally, users are not filling out their profile, reducing engagement opportunties across the platform.

CONSTRAINTS

- Short timeline
- Existing UI

GOALS

- Redesign the Profile Section for mobile and desktop so that people will find the business section with ease.
- Add a business section for mobile and desktop so that entrepreneurs can list their service business and join the paid plan to be found in all communities.
- Find a solution for how to encourage people to fill out their profiles so that the “Find Services” search function has a large database to pull from.

Research

LETS LEARN MORE
MOTIVATIONS

- Move future entrepreneurs to an affordable paid model
- Help users find services
- Free advertising for users

STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEW
The stakeholder interview took place over two meetings. One with the project manager and one without. Since I did not have access to users for the initial research, I wanted to gain as much clarity as I could with the stakeholders regarding the current state of the company, it's competition, as well as find out what their current customers were saying about the state of the profiles.
FRUSTRATIONS
- People are not filling out the profile section
- Business section is currently an afterthought- not designed for pivoted business model
- Some of the questions are excessive
NEEDS
- Aesthetic: Inviting and engaging
- Merge business and personal cohesively
- Translate the community feeling digitally
- List of specifics fields in shared google doc

ASSUMPTIONS

- People are not filling out the profile section
- Business section is currently an afterthought- not designed for pivoted business model
- Some of the questions are excessive
GOALS
- Wants users to fill out a personal profile and use a business profile when applicable so the “Find Services” task will be more robust.

PATTERN RESEARCH

My initial pattern research revealed how companies layout their profiles and what information they deemed relevant. Most companies did not have long form answers and the profiles were short and to the point.

What I found to be the most revealing was that companies like Airbnb, Facebook, Etsy and Amazon separated business and personal profiles.

Design

LETS MAKE IT USABLE
From personal to business profile and contact form.

I worked with the other designer on a way to best present the idea with a clickable icon that would be cohesive with the brand. This flow shows how a customer would use the icons to get from personal to business profiles

After gathering research, I did some white boarding with the CEO and project manager. I showcased a few ideas that were based on their assumptions and original interview. The overall design was the direction they intended to go but I had a few clarifying questions around separating the profiles based on the pattern research I had done. Even though they weren't sold on the idea just yet, I knew I wanted to keep exploring.

After the meeting, I used divergent thinking to create a set of designs that separated the business and personal profiles with minimal connection points for privacy purposes. With research in hand, I presented the ideas. It was a success! We moved forward with the second set of designs separating both business and personal profiles.

Below you can see the final designs and a few screens from each of the flows.
Reminders for users to sign up and fill out their business profiles

To solve for the business problem of users not filling out the profile in the first place, I created a way to encourage and remind users of profile completion. I gave the option to opt out in case their intention of using the app was for personal reasons only.

Onboarding flow for new business users

The reminders shown above direct users into the business onboarding flow.

Desktop designs

Test

DOES THIS THING WORK?
PROTOTYPE
I created a prototype for the presentation to the stakeholders and moved to testing the new design. Below, you'll find the organized feedback in an affinity map to help me see common themes, likes, and dislikes. 
View prototype
KEY INSIGHTS
- 100% of users were unsure of the new badge design. After some discussion, I learned that most of them just needed to be educated on their use but 80% of them felt that the Conversation Starter Badge was unnecessary or unwanted.
- The new design was much easier to find information on business profiles with
- 100 % of the users were pleased with the separation of business and personal profiles a div block.

Conclusion

SO WHAT?
RESULTS
The Inlet team will measure their success by how many of their current members fill out their personal profiles and how many convert into business profile users after the launch of the product.
NEXT STEPS
Inlet will implement these designs with another round of iterations in fall 2021. I’ve provided them with a list of future additions and changes that could be helpful in encouraging their users to sign up and participate in their business profile sales funnel. 
CONCLUSION
This design sprint gave me an opportunity to design a new feature to integrate with Inlet's growing app. Working with the feedback of another designer helped me understand the vision of their current product and make UI updates to better match the existing branding.
In the future, I look forward to challenging more assumptions during the stakeholder interviews to gain a better understanding of their experiences and thought process. I learned to question the systems that are in place and go deep into understanding the business needs in a short amount of time.
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