2010
WordPress theme design
Project
Hollistics is on online platform for Supermodel Hollis to share her natural hair journey, guest interviews and tips with naturals around the world.
This project presented several unique challenges. The development team had already been selected, deadline fixed, and the client would be out of the country for 40% of the 3 months we had until launch. In hindsight I would have recommended that the client wait until she was available for all phases of the project.
Results
We identified 3 goals for phase 1 of this project — increase user confidence, increase lead capture opportunities, and improve visual consistency between digital platforms.
Involvement. Visual Design, UX Design, Project Management
The Approach.
A 2-day submersion was conducted with the client to learn more about the business, goals, and vision for the platform. Working collaboratively we developed a project plan, competitive analysis, and resource requirements. Gathering this information enabled me to make very calculated design decisions during the early stages of the project as well as helped aid in the management of various project stages while the client unavailable.
User interviews were conducted to understand why users might choose to join and participate in this online community verses others. The outcomes of discovery were a few key assumptions and insights to inform sketches. Sketches were created and paper prototypes were reviewed with users.
Wireframe + Mockup
As a team of one and given my time constraints I opted to combine wireframing and mockups. This gave me more time to develop full annotations for development and to spend more time updating code and making small styling changes myself. This proved to be critical to staying on schedule given that development was international and in a different timezone. Working collaboratively we were about to bring the design to life on a staging environment and launch within 4 weeks.
Mockups
To move forward with the design I used Illustrator to create detailed mockups. Because of our extensive style guide I was able to provide visual direction and help move the project more quickly through the visual design phase. This approach was beneficial as it showed stakeholders design progress and provided the development team with what they needed to begin the specifications for this project.
Usability Testing
We established goals for each page within the site and wanted to get some feedback on if users would be able to complete various tasks based on the initial mockups. Using Usaura I set up a small usability test to see how user responded when asked to complete tasks. This test provided the team with a few key insights that were reflected in our final design iteration.