Connector followed a less strict User Centred Design approach, with the phases Understand, Concept Development, Design, Build and Test. On this project we did more validating with users than deriving functionality based on their core drivers and goals.
Some of the more valuable methods that we used to Understand the project's potential were user interviews, Persona development, ethnographic research and competitive analysis.
The ethnography helped us build models of how the internet market was segmented. In particular, it revealed trends in each segment's present versus potential online communication and drew comparisons with their other digital media use such as mobile devices.
Because there are many different models of messaging, environment and online collaboration, competitve analysis really helped us to see what was working in the marketplace and what was not so successful and why.
Top - a poster about one of the users studied in the ethnography done by an external comany. Bottom - An excerpt from Joe Rattigan's competitve analysis report
During the Concept Development phase, we did a lot of structured brainstorming, scenario work and prototyping. We ran some user workshops to help us understand which products and companies our target users identified with and the emotional response they had to them. From this, the brand we developed communicated fun and engagement. It inspired many features that made it into the final product. The scenarios yeilded numerous original ideas which needed to be prioritised using filters of feasability and user benefit to get to our final feature set. Low fidelity prototypes were drafted using Flash and were invaluable for exploring different interface solutions, documenting functionality and also testing with users.
In a seperate workstream, we gathered requirements for the moderation system thorugh interviews with moderators, contextual enquiry, business success criteria, editorial policy and legal concerns.
Finally we went about documenting the desired functionality with flow diagrams, wireframes taken from the prototype and Use Cases.
Flows and User Pathways by Priya Prakash
The resulting functional specification was used to add detail to the foundations that the technical team had been experimenting with. The finished graphic UI work including avatar development was the last task that finished the User Experience work.
Branding activities included finding a Unique Selling Point and determining the visual feel through mood boards and experimentation.