Blended Communities
Blended Communities is a social network and bartering caregiving services online application. Striving to connect communities to be able to trade equal time to trusted community supporters. Dedicated to helping people with the obstacles of childcare, elder care and even pets through kindness, compassion and paying it forward. Blended Communities helps barter services between trusted community supporters and the pay it forward to ensure connections between people in rural to metropolitan areas.
Project Overview
Challenge
Naomi Hill founder of Blended Communities partnered with Essteem to participate in 2021 Equalithon for Accessibility. My team needed to incorporate an accessibility feature. However the application was static, lacked functionality, and had no clear brand identity.
Objective
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Redesign Blended Communities website
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Design a visual experience that reflects a brand identity
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Incorporate accessibility feature
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Create mobile app
Role
UX/UI Designer, Researcher
Task
Incorporate Accessibility
Time
2 weeks
Tools
Google Forms, Figma, Slack, Zoom, Maze
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Design Process
Discover
User Survey
Competitive Analysis
Comparative Analysis
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Define
User Persona
Problem Statment
Hypothesis Statements
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Design
Task Flow
User Flow
Wireframes​
Deliver
Style Guide
Prototype
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Discovery
User Survey
We created a survey to understand the users experience when trying to locate assistance when related to childcare, elderly care, or even petcare. This assisted us with understanding the users needs and pains when seeking support.
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8/10 responses stated that they had to either cancel or reschedule their plans if they could not find assistance.
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92% of individual's normally ask assistance from their family.
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25% belong to a community.
Competitive Analysis
I researched Blended Communities competitors so I could evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. The insight gained here provided key information in terms of the strengths we wanted to build upon and the weaknesses we wanted to avoid while keeping Blended Communities goals in mind.
Comperative Analysis
I assessed Blended Communities current website to gain knowledge of their present web presence and their existing user experience. Allowing me to gain an idea of how we could improve the and incorporate accessibility.
Define
User Persona
Using the insights gained from research, we created two personas that would accurately represent Blended Communities target user. These personas continued to guide our decisions moving forward, making sure our design centered around them.​
Problem Statement
Once we identified our target user, Jeniffer, It was time to identify the actual problem we were solving for based on what we had learned about our user.
"Jeniffer needs to be able to find caregivers that can provide support for children with physical disabilites."
Hypothesis Statements
How might we...
HMW help Jeniffer with finding support for her physically disabled son?
HMW provide a seamless process to request support?
HMW assist Jeniffer be part of a community?
Design
Task Flow
In order to understand the ideal user path, I built a task flow of Blended Communities portal.
User Flow
I identified the path users could take to find support.
Wireframes
We adapted elements from sketches to create wireframes for Blended Communities application.
Deliver
Style Guide
Using the style guide we applied UI elements to Blended Communities application to convey brand identity as well as help with the coherence of the design moving forward.
Prototype
Due to the time constraint of the hackathon, we aimed to make the prototype as interactive as possible. We wanted to show the client a complete product and be able to hand off our designs for further developments.
Final Thoughts + Next Steps
Final Thoughts
Completing this case study gave me a boost of confidence. I often feel imposter syndrome during the design process but due to the time constraint of the hackathon, it really pushed me to stop over-analyzing my work.
What I'm most proud of from this project was the ability to conduct research, rebrand, ideate, and design a desktop app all within one week. The client allowed us to have a lot of creative freedom which felt overwhelming at first. However, that allowed our team to trust one another and really hone in on our skills to produce an app for Blended Communities.
Next Steps
I suggest conducting usability testing to learn things about user behavior, needs, and expectations upfront. The insights and benefits gleaned from usability testing are essential to informing product development.