Timeline and process

Business need

Legasea is an early-stage start up who approached Tech Alchemy to bring their product vision to life building an MVP in the form of a clickable prototype.

Challenge

We were tasked with developing a pragmatic design system and documentation to demonstrate the potential of Legasea to potential investors and raise funds in order to build the product.

Due to the subject matter of this project, the challenge was to be especially empathetic and exercise emotional sensitivity through the design process and designing the user experience that took into account people’s emotional state when using the product.

Build the right thing

Problem framing

At the very start of the project I sensed the team wasn’t aligned with the client needs. I therefore organised a framing workshop in order to:

• Understand their idea/ product vision

• Gain an understanding of existing knowledge around people’s needs, pain points, motivations

• Identify any knowledge gaps that required further research

User research

To identify the right problem (rather than design based on assumptions) I conducted 10 in-depth interviews with:

• Potential users who create, store and organise memories

• Potential users who would receive the legacy (after a loss)


Research objective

• Develop a deep understanding of people’s needs and pain points around creating, storing and organising memories

• Gain an understanding of the current experience of inheriting and potential pain points to identify opportunities

It was very important to be emotionally sensitive as it could be emotionally triggering for research participants.

Insights

01 People need to be able to trust our solution to protect and store their data

Opportunities

Allow the user to get to know the app before signing in to anything

Product requirements/ Functionalities

Onboarding the user by presenting the app and its benefits

02 People should not fear for they data to end up on the web

Allow the user to create an account with several layers of security

Provide the user with a safe way to share content

Create an account/ Log in ensures a safe space for the users

Sharing content is made through an invitation to join the application and only involves the content the user wishes to share (e.g. one page of an album)

03 People need to be able to find content quickly and easily

Build an organisation system to allow the user to tag content

Design an efficient filtering/ search system

The user is able to create or upload content and assign it several tags such as location, time and key words. The user is able to track down a memory using these tags

04 People should be able to organise their memories

Allow the user to add content to a memory

We provide the user with books and tags that he can use, modify or simply create new ones

The user is able to place a memory in favorite

Ideation

After conducting user research to identify people’s needs, pinpoint opportunities and detail product requirements and functionalities, I ideated on specific areas by sketching and exploring different solutions.

Wireframes

After sketching, I identified ideas to move forward with, creating wireframes based on the user flows I had previously developed. This allowed me to visualise the concepts without getting bogged down into the details of visual design.

Visual design exploration

I played a key role in the development of a Brand guideline document as well as a Design System, building user-friendly components that would meet usability and accessibility standards, and including the facilitation of several creative workshops with the clients to understand their needs and guide them to the best possible brand image.

Final designs

We delivered a final interactive mobile app prototype for Legasea that helps people build their legacy for the after life and allow their loved ones to keep a trace of them while storing, organising and reliving memories.
The app is currently being prepared for beta testing before launching on the app store.

Outcome

We delivered a interactive clickable prototype which the team is currently in the process of developing to be launched on the app store.

We also delivered a user testing protocol, a designed landing page and branding guidelines.

Reflection

Learnings, key takeaways, things I would have done differently…

Spend more time understanding the project and the bigger picture

In this project, I empathised the importance of integrating a UX designer from the beginning, demonstrating how user experience starts with a deep understanding of business needs and requirements. Next time, I will really anticipate when a project starts so that I can be there from the beginning at concept development phase rather than later on the process.

Make room for research and communication

I learned which parts of the design process needed more time and was time well spent (e.g. user research) because this would actually save stakeholders time in the end. This ensures that they are building a product that actually addresses people’s needs.