Resume
Overview
As an independent contractor for an IT consulting firm specializing in empowering small businesses, I was referred to evaluate the desirability of a SaaS solution designed to streamline project management practices. My role involved conducting comprehensive discovery, facilitating user interviews, and performing in-depth analysis to assess the solution's feasibility and potential impact.
Approach
Our project was grounded in the philosophy that creating powerful digital products requires seamless alignment among all stakeholders in software development. The primary objective was to explore and address common transparency challenges and workflows in software development through collaborative discussions and iterative design cycles.
Timeline
4 months
Team
2
Deliverables
PRD, User Research Report, Prototype
Tools
Figma, Bubble
My Role
Design-thinking workshop facilitator
User research interviews and analysis
Low and high fidelity wireframes
Design of object-oriented assets on Bubble.io
Problem
Process
Deliverables
We emphasized creating a solid foundation for developers to build upon. During the Develop and Deliver stages, we created Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) to outline the data structure and relationships within the application, providing a clear blueprint for the development team.
User Research Report
Our interview analysis identified pain points, tools, themes, and key terms, visualized through word maps. Using noun-foraging, we extracted common nouns from transcripts to create an intuitive glossary for labeling objects and models aligned with end-user goals.
Prototype
Although our primary focus was on the discovery stage, we used our research to guide the design process, adopting a "build to learn" approach for smarter iteration. I led the creation of wireframes on paper, developed low-fidelity mockups in Figma, and built an early prototype in Bubble featuring key flows like sign-in, project creation, and progress reporting. To ensure consistency and efficiency, I followed an established design system, maintaining brand identity and streamlining prototype creation. All designs were grounded in our interview insights, ERDs, and object-oriented design principles.
Product Requirements Document
We designed the end-product using Object-Oriented User Experience (OOUX) principles to create a user experience centered on clear, coherent objects, identified through noun-foraging. Complementing this, we applied Atomic Design principles to break down the interface into fundamental components, ensuring consistency and scalability in the final Product Requirements Document (PRD). The PRD included the early prototype, critical assumptions, a finalized ERD, and user personas derived from the user research report.
Moving Forward
This project has been my most user-focused and research-intensive endeavor to date, where I utilized interview and workshop facilitation skills to deeply understand the problem before designing solutions. A key takeaway was that identifying problems is as important as solving them; while many project management tools address common issues, listening to users uncovered overlooked challenges. These insights highlighted that understanding nuances leads to more innovative solutions.
To refine these nuances further, I would conduct additional end-user interviews and test the finalized MVP, focusing on the quality of communication throughout a project's lifecycle.