Client

Doerscircle

Date & Duration

Nov 2021 / 3 weeks

My Contributions

User Research; Competitive & Comparative Analysis, UX/UI Design; Prototyping; Usability Testing; Presentation;

in collaboration with Bao Yun, Kenneth Yeo & Stephanie Tham.

Project

Summary

Doerscircle leverages the strength of numbers to bring Independent Doers - startups, founders, entrepreneurs, and freelancers - resources and solutions at reasonable prices. Doerscircle wanted to test the concept of having a microsite where Independent Doers can access resources for their career growth and at the same time acquire lead generation.

The Problem

Being an Independent Doer - start up, founder, entrepreneur or freelancer - can be filled with many uncertainties. It can be daunting for Independent Doers when not given curated guidance with provision of the right relatable resources to progress in their career and oftentimes, Independent Doers are led to great potential risk by trial and error.

The Solution

We designed a microsite that could assess the needs of each Independent Doer, and suggesting them the right necessities or resources for their career development. At the same time, driving sign ups in order to build Doerscircle's user base.

There are many different platforms that provides resources (tools, form templates, contract templates, etc.) available for users to download from. However, with the abundance of resources, it might not be specific enough to the type of business that users need.

Learning #2

Acquiring the right resources for their business

GOING FORWARD

Key learnings from user research

We conducted interviews with 12 individuals (freelancers), from a variety of professions (tutors, coaches, artists, bakers, etc.).

Increasing the user base

Quick & easy sign up / in process

Adapting marketing techniques from other similar sites - with the relatable resources available for the users to download upon signing up, it is an opportunity for Doerscircle to increase its user base and maintain its customer relation. In order to do so, we looked into a quicker and easier sign up / in process by integrating OpenID and OAuth accompanied with prominent CTA (Call-To-Action) buttons.

"OpenID" :

Allows user to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites without needing to create new passwords.

"OAuth" :

An authentication protocol that allows user to approve one application interacting with another on your behalf without giving away your password.

KEY SCREENS

View Prototype

Discover your career path

Find reliable resources

Download resources for your career development

Similar to some online personality quizzes such as 16personalities.com and Adobe's mycreativetype.com, we applied a similar concept where users will encounter questions about their career aspirations, needs and challenges as well as several abstract questions to understand their motivations, personality and perspectives.

Usability Test & Iterations

Did it work?

To test the prototype of our redesigned website, we assigned 8 individuals with a set of tasks to carry out. All 8 testers managed to complete the given tasks successfully. Hereby our findings that were highlighted throughout the test which we iterated.

Scroll horizontally (left - right) to navigate through the iterations.

Discover your i-Doer

Questionnaire to know and understand users

We have to understand that each Independent Doer have a unique career path, given that they have different skill sets, level of experiences and needs. Our goal is to have a user flow that could apply to all freelancers and at the same time cater to each of their individual needs. With a sorting questionnaire - inspired from a few comparative analysis - it enables our users to know more about themselves and will be directed to a proposed list (results page) of resources based on what they answered which they could then use / implement for their career development.

With assistance from Doerscircle, part of the process in understanding the user's career path, online articles were studied to determine the different career development stages (e.g. setting up business, finding jobs, managing clients) of being an Independent Doer and breaking down the different activities that lies under each stage. These online findings were also validated from our user interviews.

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From our learnings mentioned above, it became evident to us that majority of our users fall between the "Awareness" & "Consideration" phases of the customer funnel - the marketing term that shows the potential customer's journey toward the purchase of a good or service. With this model in mind, we also take into consideration the other phases as well to ensure the sustainability of the microsite.

"Awareness" :

The initial stage whereby the customer / user finds the brand, product or service appealing. This is the start to making them receptive to future interactions.

"Consideration" :

Users are in careful thought, whether or not to proceed with the brand, product or service in comparison with other providers / competitors.

Curated results for users to focus on

Upon completing the questionnaire, users will be led to a results page which they will have a clearer understanding of the stage or stages (as discussed earlier in Learning #1) they should prioritise for their career development. The page will provide recommended resources based on the answers they provided earlier such as services, tools, forms, templates or potential networks that could assist them in their career development, based on the answers they have given.

Future opportunities

The questionnaire could be further developed with more extensive research to determine more accurate allocations for the users to determine the stages of career development they should focus on.
We proposed to Doerscircle how the microsite could be integrated into the main site and existing CRM to avoid confusion for users to navigate two different sites at the same time integrating the proposed microsite into the existing user's portal (from the main site).
As this is a concept design, Doerscircle could still adopt the designed solutions into their main website.

OUTCOMES

The stakeholders from Doerscircle were very pleased with the microsite design. A few months later, Doerscircle made some updates to their main website and adopted a number of our designs (below, left column) into their updated site (below, right column).

Since the user have completed the questionnaire and is already aware of the career development stage(s) to focus on, the user may directly refer or acquire other relatable resources from the "Career Development" tab on a separate occasion.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

With the constraint of Doerscircle being a startup, we put into consideration at an early stage on how to attend to the users in a productive and efficient way without first interacting with the limited staffs of Doerscircle. This questionnaire also serves as an added benefit for Doerscircle to get to know their clients should they seek further face to face, as well as building their user database.

Some of our interviewees shared that they often do not know the next "steps" in their careers. With many of them working independently, there is a need for guidance for these Independent Doers to know where they are at in their career, what are the different possibilities for them to grow their business, what are their career growth milestones and what are the resources required for their company's growth.

Learning #1

Understanding where they are at in their career