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Phase 2 Summary Report

September 5, 2022

Table of Contents

Page 3 Team Updates

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Page 5 Phase 1 Summary

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Page 11 Phase 2 Pivot

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Phase 2 Summaries

Page x Research

Page x Design

Page x Development

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Page 32 Phase 3 Recommendations

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Team Changes

• Strategy
• Kerritt Saintal, Lead
• Adaobi Obijiofor, Apprentice
• Chukwuebuka Obiora, Apprentice
• Design Team
• Luigie Catanghal, Lead
• Lauren Busser, Lead
• Bethany Burns, Apprentice
• Dana C, Apprentice
• Xuan Jun (XJ) Lu, Apprentice
• Katie Horowitz

• Project
• Morgan Denner, CXO/ Project Lead
• Nicole Jedinak, Project Lead
• Kristen Shuman, Project Coordinator
• Research Team
• Wendy Tran, Lead
• Sarah Sanchez, Lead
• Betty Fung, Apprentice
• Theresa Hoffmann, Apprentice
• Justin Goudy, Apprentice
• Kacy Workman, Apprentice
• Aubrey Schiavone, Apprentice
• Development Team
• Morgan Denner, Lead
• Afonso Urbano, Apprentice
• Jose Solorio, Apprentice

Phase 1 Recap

Phase 1 Recap

Goals:

1. Research the user demographic and their traits
2. Explore the habits of people on social media and other tools that can inspire our solution
3. Explore the needs and frustrations of teens and parents when it comes to "constructive social media" and means of self-expression online
4. Explore other engagement/ retention strategies TST can adopt in their platform
5. Provide recommendations for what TST should include in the first release of the product and what they can do in subsequent releases
6. Design a fully-functioning first release product
7. Test with users, provide recommendations, and adjust

Phase 1 Objectives Recap

1. Research the user demographic and their traits
2. Explore the habits of people on social media and other tools that can inspire our solution
3. Explore the needs and frustrations of teens and parents when it comes to "constructive social media" and means of self-expression online
4. Explore other engagement/ retention strategies TST can adopt in their platform

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5. Provide recommendations

for what TST should include

in the first release of the

product and what they can

do in subsequent releases

6. Design a fully-functioning

first release product

7. Test with users, provide

recommendations, and

adjust

Phase 1 Accomplishments

Phase 1 Recap

Research Outcomes: Full research report available here

• Social media usage (positive and negative), competitive analysis, and usability testing
• Key insight: Users report using social media primarily to learn new skills, connect with others, and activism

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• User Personas: Artist, Supporter, Digital Content Creator, Mentor, Activist

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Phase 1 Recap

Design Outcomes: High-fidelity mobile application prototype with the following flows

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• Onboarding
• Home, with Tool tips for First Time Use (FTU)
• Home, after FTU
• Discover, with Tool tips for FTU
• Discover
• Messaging
• Profiles
• Rooms (what Phase 2 calls “Groups”)
• Create and send an image post
• Live Sessions
• Send Post and Booking via Chat

Phase 1 MVP Deliverable: Mobile Prototype

A mobile platform where users can:

• Connect through shared interests
• Give and receive feedback
• Develop a sense of belonging
• Learn or deepen knowledge
• Network and pursue creative and professional development

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Note: Click images to load prototype

Phase 1 Results

Phase 1 Recommendations:

1. Conduct Hi-Fi usability testing with The Serious Type users
2. Research how to avoid normal social media deceptive patterns
3. Get a better understanding of mentorship expectations/roll-out

Phase 1 Summary:

• focused on developing a mobile application prototype at the request of the client and recommended phase 2 continue testing and building out the mentoring feature of that mobile prototype

Phase 2

Phase 2

Pivoting from Phase 1:

Desktop first

Desktop First:

It became quickly apparent to the phase 2 team that our efforts would be better spent addressing the current usability issues with the existing website.

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Phase 2 pivoted to focusing on building a Progressive Web Application, that would redesign the appearance, information architecture, navigation, content, and backend of the website before addressing the mobile application.

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Phase 2 Goals:

Engagement

Explore how to increase engagement among users on the app

Testing

Conduct usability testing with TST users

Safety

Safeguard all interactions

Explore how to avoid deceptive patterns

Mentorship

Determine the role of mentorship and/ or connection among users on the app

Clarifying the Direction of Phase 2

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Phase 1 Prototype Design:

• Designed for users of all ages, beyond 13-22 target demographic
• A place for people to gather around ideas & topics
• Live video chat
• Mentorship component
• Is it solving the right problem?

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Existing Website Design

• Designed for 13-22-year-old demographic
• A place for users to share their work and view the work of others
• No interactivity with posts or between users
• How do current users feel about the site?

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Arriving at Prioritizing Desktop First

Website

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User Engagement:

• About 20 active users on website
• 63% use desktop, 36% mobile
• Low engagement: Hundreds of users landing on home page, only about 2% click through to another page
• Only about 16% of users are returning
• Average time on site, less than 2 minutes

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Demographics:

• Phase 1 had tested primarily with ages 18+; target demo does include 18+ but also primarily ages 13-18

Mobile App

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Landing Page:

• Why do users open to the categories/ feed within the Phase 1 mobile prototype and how might we better discourage deceptive patterns?

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Mentorship:

• What is Nikki’s vision for mentorship, how does this relate to collaboration? What research is available or could we conduct to answer these questions?

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Research:

• Would current website users be available to test the prototype during this phase?

What we didn’t do:

Phase 2 Accomplishments

Phase 2 Accomplishments

Phase 2 Vision for TST

Elevator Pitch for TST

User Journey Maps & Proto Personas

Because neither Phase 1 or 2 was able to survey or interview current TST users, we did not have enough research to produce fully fleshed out personas.

The following are based on work from both phases.

The journeys cover users’ experiences of the current TST website.

Mentorship

• Recommended as a topic for exploration by Phase 1 team
• Nikki expressed interest and suggested kids could also be mentors, not just adults, that anyone could self-select as an expert on a topic and serve as a mentor
• We considered the idea of users leveling up to mentor roles through engagement on the app
• Why we set the concept aside:
• We had no evidence that teens are interested in mentorship, only adults
• The research required felt outside of our 8-week scope given the other (more promising) features and topics we were exploring
• Concerns over the safety of adults mentoring teens online arose
• With only about 20-30 active users on the existing website, we weren’t sure the audience was large enough to attract mentors
• We weren’t confident that mentorship as a feature would improve engagement

Goals

• Goals replaced mentorship as a constructive engagement tool
• Secondary research suggested this would be a valuable feature
• User research is needed to confirm whether target users are interested in this feature

Collaboration

• Making the site collaborative is a big goal for Nikki, the client
• A survey was conducted that indicated people (including teens!) enjoy collaboration on projects
• This feature was under construction at the end of Phase 2 and during the mini phase
• More work is needed to build out this feature

Posting

• This was a key feature and the only thing users can do on the existing site besides consuming the content posted by other users
• This feature was designed, prototyped, tested, and iterated on in Phase 2
• Fresh eyes should validate the design and test the latest iteration with users

Other Features

• Many ideas from Phase 2 did not make it into the prototype
• We ran out of time and people power to include all the features we wanted to include in our MVP
• There’s lots more that the Phase 2 vision for the MMP included, including some features Phase 1 built into their mobile app prototype, including:
• Live video chat
• In-person events

A more detailed look…

To dive into the weeds, check out the following:

Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Aj-6vejcgFRwIkFZZJ_ufEn6aTm0pLbL?usp=sharing

Notion

https://www.notion.so/tech-fleet-community-dao/The-Serious-Type-Phase-2-db61615925014794a6150a113bbf262a

https://www.notion.so/tech-fleet-community-dao/Phase-2-Links-604eaeec9fc6405ea082b3287cc9e478

https://www.notion.so/tech-fleet-community-dao/Phase-2-Mini-Phase-Work-016e002e02e04d24b282068cac5739a8

Recommendations

• Usability testing of latest prototype designs (mobile & desktop)
• Exploration of features such as
• Collaboration
• Goals
• Mentorship
• Live video chat
• Survey and/or interview current users of the existing website
• Continue building out designs
• Continue development based on updated and new designs

Note: Nikki likes the prototype Phase 2 built and does not want to start over from scratch again as happened between Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Thank you! 👋