Feb. 2021

Role

UX/UI Designer & Front-end Developer

Tools

Miro, Adobe XD, & HTML/CSS/JS

Overview

In this gig economy, freelancers and gig workers are having trouble managing their businesses. The solution is a project management tool that enables the user to manage and scale their business effectively.

Research

To understand what are freelancers' day-to-day business goals, how they actively manage their business, and the struggles they face; 8 freelancers from various backgrounds were interviewed. A survey to better understand the users' demographics, popular management tools, and wanted popular management features was sent out: which received over 100 responses.

The gap between the passion, the nonprofit exhibits, and the user experience can shorten with proper UX/UI strategies.

Survey Findings:

  • 54% of participants believe having access to their business management tools from their phones is very important.
  • 78% of participants said they used some combination of QuickBooks, Microsoft Excel (to manage income and spending), and other tools to find clients and manage projects.
  • 71% of participants have less than 2 years of experience as freelancers.

User Persona:

Created a persona based off the findings from the interviews and the results of the survey.

Competitive Analysis:

The competitive analysis focused on three management tools (Basecamp, Proofhub, and QuickBooks).
Click here to see the full competitive analysis
BasecampProofhubQuickBooks
Strengths
  • All-in-one project management tool with a very simple sign-up procedure, able to register with just a Google email.
  • Instead of emails there can be one clear message board.
  • Easy to organize projects and automatic check-ins.
  • Clear design and clear walk-through of the platform.
  • Easy to use tools to manage finances and flows of income.
Weaknesses
  • You have to sign up for the program and not everyone has a gmail account. There is also a big learning curve to know how exactly to use the website (that can be a frustrating task).
  • When you want to add a team members, you have to input a ton of information; not just the email.
  • The program does not encourage entrepreneur use. You also have to pay for their service, at least $12.99 per month.

The Problem Statement:

Many freelance designers use multiple platforms to reach out to clients, manage their finances, and organize their projects in order to complete them on time.

Value Proposition:

The main goal is to combine those three features into one platform to make freelance businesses easier to maintain for all types of freelancers.

Ideation

User Journey:

Created a journey map to understand customer's expectations, objectives, and interactions; it is essential for creating a flawless customer experience.
freelance-journeymap

User Flows:

Created user flows that focused on the getting to the dashboard and the proccess of submitting a job proposal.
freelance user flows

Prototype & Test

Lo-Fi Wireframes:

 
 
 
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Usability Testing:

Objective:
 To ensure that the user can smoothly manage workflow tasks within the Freelance Boss website.
Task 1:
 Create an account
Task 2:
 Find a new client
Task 3:
 Navigate to the Workspace
Takeaways:
  • Users had trouble understanding the meaning of certain keywords
  • Users had trouble with the navigation
  • Users expressed that having an advanced search feature would be really helpful
  • Users wanted a favorites list integration to the Kanban board
Overall users understood the intended use but were thrown off by the layout and spacing in certain areas, also believed that that the lack of context caused some difficulties.

Style Tile:

Freelance Boss - Style Tile

Hi-Fi Wireframes

 
 
 
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Video of Prototype

Check out the coded desktop prototype

Next Steps

  • Code the rest of the management features
  • Continue usability testing to improve functionality
  • Design the mobile version of the project management tool