DESIGN / UX — September 2020
ACE Digital Product Design
Overview
ACE Digital is a digital platform that automates the services of an advertising agency in a bid to tap into the widespread availability of freelance designers and developers in the Nigerian market.
Problem
Nigeria has a large population of entrepreneurs and SME’s serving a vast number of consumers; with each business owner needing to define its business via advertising, most commonly via digital channels, which always requires content.
Many of these businesses do not have reliable service providers for design or content development, mostly relying on freelancers as the option of outsourcing to larger, reputable advertising agencies is out of the question due to the high costs.
Design
Create a solution that enables entrepreneurs and SME’s create advertising and/or promotional content for their businesses quickly and effectively at a fraction of the cost of using a major advertising agency.
Roles and Responsibilities
Product Design, Visual Design and User Experience Design.
Users and Audience
User research was conducted to determine the demographics of potential consumers — their needs, expectations, and motivations to shop online for fresh organic food and groceries.
User Goals
- Access on-trend designs, content, and support to enable their small business to create professional-looking marketing assets and content, including business cards logos, social media kits, and websites, even if they’re not marketing experts.
Scope and Constraints
The platform needed to allow users to do the following:
- Create an account or sign-in (for existing users)
- Browse through a selection of product offerings, all organized by categories
- View product offering details including quantity, pricing and timelines
- Adjust product offering quantity
- Add preferred product offering to basket
- Checkout items by making payment (externally)
- Access support after payment completion
- Track completed order after payment completion
Process
Discovery
I started by researching similar products like Vistaprint and Logojoy to compare UX flows, feature sets and interaction choices.
User Research
User research was carried out by the product development team before the project was handed to me and inferences from the results were used in designing the process for of the platform.
Outcomes
Screens from the final design
Here are some screens from the final product.
The Logo Studio allows users to input all details required to create a logo for their business.
The Business Card Creator Studio allows users to input all details required to create a business card for their business.
The Letterhead Creator Studio allows users to input all details required to create a business card for their business.
The Social Media Management Studio allows users to input all details required to create social media management strategies for their business.
The Influencer Studio allows users to identify influencers they believe can amplify the reach of their businesses and products and also specify the social channels and content types they prefer to be developed.
The Storyboarding Studio allows users to upload a script and any other relevant details required to create storyboard visualizations for advertisements, short films or even feature movies.
The Business Starter Pack Studio allows busier/indecisive users to access an all-in-one starter package that can get their business running with just one click.
Next steps?
- Adding additional product flows
-
Improving the user flow of the individual products
Future Features
- Icon Creator
- Brand Identity Creator
-
Mockup Viewer
A high-fidelity prototype was created using Figma HERE.
Learnings
What have I learned?
The most critical learning I took from designing this platform is that ‘simpler is always better’.
We iterated through several versions of each of the product ‘studios’ to strike the right balance between interaction and experience; ultimately opting for simple forms with visual cues to shorten the time from decision
to purchase.
Next steps?
- Designing additional products
-
Improving the user flow of the individual products
Future Features
- Icon Creator
- Brand Identity Creator
- Mockup Viewer
