About Me
I'm a twenty six years old designer form Taiwan who recently got a master's degree from the Digital Media program at Northeastern University. My concentration of design are user experience, user interface, and interactive design. Or people may known as websites, applications, and platforms.
About Me
I'm a twenty six years old designer form Taiwan who recently got a master's degree from the Digital Media program at Northeastern University. My concentration of design are user experience, user interface, and interactive design. Or people may known as websites, applications, and platforms.
About Me
I'm a twenty six years old designer form Taiwan who recently got a master's degree from the Digital Media program at Northeastern University. My concentration of design are user experience, user interface, and interactive design. Or people may known as websites, applications, and platforms.
About Me
I'm a twenty six years old designer form Taiwan who recently got a master's degree from the Digital Media program at Northeastern University. My concentration of design are user experience, user interface, and interactive design. Or people may known as websites, applications, and platforms.
About Me
I'm a twenty six years old designer form Taiwan who recently got a master's degree from the Digital Media program at Northeastern University. My concentration of design are user experience, user interface, and interactive design. Or people may known as websites, applications, and platforms.
About Me
I'm a twenty six years old designer form Taiwan who recently got a master's degree from the Digital Media program at Northeastern University. My concentration of design are user experience, user interface, and interactive design. Or people may known as websites, applications, and platforms.
Rain Computing Inc.
Rain Computing Inc. is a start-up company based in Boston, MA. The product is an application that provides an enterprise-level app store with a real-time communication and collaboration feature. The current phase of the product is still in development. The CEO plans to first breakout the market from the legal industry.
# UX Research # UX Design # UI Design
Inspiration
Our product is based on a patent of the CEO. We are creating an enterprise-level app store that allows our clients to manage all their applications in one place. The CEO first aims the legal industry to implement the idea since he is a lawyer himself. Our short-term goal is to create a legal case management system. There will be two main parts of the product. On the app store side, there will be apps with functions designed specifically for elevating lawyers' efficiency. On the other side, there will be a case-based chat system. According to the users' purpose, the lawyers have to keep all the information and discussion in one place in order to present it holistically to the judge and clients. The current workflow of lawyers, however, spent a lot of time searching and organizing emails, communication records, and files all over the places. So, hopefully that our product is the solution to these challenges.
My Role
To be honest, I did not meet the best time of Rain Computing. There was actually a funding issue when I got on board. Therefore, the CEO can only offer me an intern position instead of a full-time job. However, since I was the only designer in the company, my responsibilities basically cover the whole design process. From the UX research, UX/UI design, and all the way to usability testing. After a few months, there was a new designer joining the design team. I really appreciate the collaboration and support that we have between us. We discussed both mine and her projects three times a week and provide feedback for each other. When talking about mine, I'll lead and she helps, and the same way around. Apart from the actual design tasks, I'm also responsible for communicate between the design team and the development team which is based in India. Although there were some difficulties and misunderstandings at first, we gradually formed a hand-off system that we agreed on both sides.
My Design Process
Below is the basic process that I usually follow. However, in the real world, there are plenty of variables that will have to adapt to the change of process.
UX RESEARCH
The Problem
Most of the applications focus on the main function. On the good side is that they are particular in their own area. However, on the other side is that we have to deal with a lot of logins and licenses to get our job done.
The lawyers have to keep all the information, discussion, and shared files in one place in order to present it holistically to the judge and clients. The search bar for emails is not precise enough. Besides, there are so many other communication tools. So this is an easy but time-consuming process.
Target Audiences
Audience Research
Primary
Lawyers, 63.6% male 36.4% female, lawyers' secretaries, use English for work, willing to adopt new tools and workflow, believe that time is money, like to complete tasks with efficiency. 60%
Secondary
Lawyers' clients, public, adults, don't have a legal background, care about the status and process of the case, transparent billing record. 30%
Tertiary
Potential apps companies that want to put their product on our platform, document exporting, docketing, scheduling, billing, communication, recording. 10%
Persona
A good design is not what the designers or the stakeholders like, is fulfilling the users' goals and pain points. The creation of a persona provides directions and helps decision making in the design process.
User Interview
I conducted a few user interviews with questions that I designed to know more about the users' current behavior and thoughts about the product they're using.
Competitor Research
Since there is no exact same product as ours on the market, I can only find those that are relevant to study.
Proposed Solutions
Enterprise-level App Store
An enterprise-level app store for the users to manage their apps in one place. A platform that allows users, companies, or even industries to organize their apps.
Case-based Group Chat
A case-based chat function with the subgroup feature. There will be basic messenger functions, such as direct messages and group chat. But the group chats are organized by cases. The users are allowed to create subgroups in the case chat.
High-level Goals
Product Strategy
Sign Up
All users will have to sign up before using the application. After creating an account (either by email or other social media login), the users are able to explore and experience a free version of our product.
Use Paid Plans
There will be two to three different plans for the users to choose from. Obviously, the paid, or so-called premium plan will have access to more data storage, ad-free, and other appealing benefits and features.
Partnership
Accumulate a group of users, both lawyers and clients, to show the app development companies that there is a great market in our community.
UX/UI DESIGN
User Workflow
During the pandemic period, our team has to work remotely, so an online whiteboard is a solution. We listed the workflow and discussed the information architecture of each page related to the flow. Here is a screenshot of our whiteboard.
Information Architecture
This step helps me to list out the components and content of the pages before I spend time on the creation of the wireframe. The content list will can be easily modified or made changes than the wireframe.
Sketch
My favorite way of sketching is "speed sketching". I'm not sure if this is the right name, but that's what I call it. According to the result of UX research and information architecture, I first set up a timer, say 6 mins depends on the complexity of the page, and try to draw as many versions of the same page with different layouts. Don't think or analyze while sketching, just draw as many as possible in the limit of time. Finally, discuss and vote for the best.
Wireframe
The tool that I used to create the wireframe and prototype is Adobe XD.
DESKTOP
Prototype
Login Sign Up Page
Simplified the login process by adopting social media login. Separated the signup form into two easy steps in order to keep it short for the users.
User Onboarding
Since the target audience of our product will have a basic familiarity with the communication software, the tour will only cover the features that are different from other existing tools.
Case-based chatting channels
In order to organize the communication history and files, we introduced the case-based chat function. The lawyers can create a chat group for each case and invite the assistants, clients, and everyone who's related to the case into the group. In each chat, the members can also create their own subgroups to allow private conversations. For example, the lead attorney of a case wants to discuss something privately with his/her assistant, they can do this by creating a subgroup with only the two of them in it.
Send Settings
Since the purpose of our system, unlike regular chatting tools, is kind of serious and have very low fault tolerance, we implied the Delay Send for users to prevent mistakes. Users are allowed to set a delay timer for every message they send so that they can cancel it in the delay period.
According to the target audience's need for a lot of legal submissions, we introduced the Schedule Send to our system. The users can either schedule a file or a message to serve as a reminder for the later event.
MOBILE
Prototype
USABILITY TEST
Qualitative
Testing
The method I took for the usability test was qualitative testing. Apart from the number-oriented quantitative test, it focuses on observing the expectations and actions of the users. While I conducted the test, I separated the functions into tasks and goals for the users to complete, and try to identify their confusion in the workflow. The result will be valuable guidance for the design.
Lesson
Learned
While completing the tasks in the usability test, the users won't always follow the workflow that the designers expected. I found that since I'm working on the project almost every day, there are some confusions that are too familiar for me to notice. For example, I choose the icons of a tab by myself, so there is no way that I'll be confused by them. However, users don't feel the same way. Most of the testees can't form any expectations while looking at the icons. And uncertainty is not an emotion that the users would like to have while using an application.
Iteration
Design is not a linear process. Based on the result of the usability tests, we re-think the workflow of the functions that were confused and come up with new solutions to solve the problem.
DESIGN HAND OFF
Styleguide
Prototype Link
The prototype link that I created by Adobe XD is not only handy for users to simulate the real interactions and workflow, but it's also developer-friendly. The designers and developers can collaborate painlessly on it. The two features that I appreciate the most is the comments and the specs mode.
The comments mode
The spces mode
Explanation Materials
Mostly slides, some videos for interactions that can't show on slides if needed.
HTML File(div only)
Since we're working remotely, it is difficult to include developers in the design process. I'll create a HTML file with div only for the developer to understand the grouping and layers of my design. It's like speaking their language.
PARTNERS' WORDS
“WHEN IT COMES TO UI/UX DESIGN, CHUN-YU TAKES INTO CONSIDERATION BOTH ITS ESTHETICS AND ITS TECHNICALITY. HE LOOKS INTO EVERY POSSIBLE DETAIL, YET WITHOUT LOSING SIGHT OF THE BIG PICTURE. CHUN-YU HAS WORKED CLOSELY WITH THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM AND TURNED GRAPHICAL WORKFLOW DESIGNS INTO FUNCTIONAL SOFTWARE FEATURES. CHUN-YU IS TRULY A GREAT ADDITION TO THE TEAM."
HSUANYEH CHANG, PhD / RAIN COMPUTING / CEO
“TO START OFF, CHUN-YU (JIMMY) IS A GREAT GUY! HE’S RESPECTFUL AND ALWAYS HELPING OTHERS. WHEN IT COMES TO WORK, HE’S EXTREMELY PROFESSIONAL AND THOUGHTFUL. WE WORKED TOGETHER REMOTELY ACROSS THE GLOBE WHICH CAN BE TOUGH, YET HE MAKES THE PROCESS VERY EASY. JIMMY IS VERY DETAIL WHEN IT COMES TO UX DESIGN. EVERY DESIGN HE DOES HAS DATA AND FACTS TO BACK IT UP. IT IS CERTAIN THAT HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE’S DOING. HE’S A GREAT TEAM PLAYER AND AN AMAZING PERSON TO WORK WITH!"
CECILIA CHEN / RAIN COMPUTING / UX UI DESIGNER