Mosaic

Intro

For our interface design course's final project, we were tasked to create a prototyped mobile app for a specific domain and audience: independent creative markets and their contributors + attendees.

Contextualizing the Domain

I interviewed 5 individuals who are frequent visitors/vendors of local markets to garner their major goals, motivations and pain points. These were the key findings :

Complex Market Discovery

Vendor application forms tended to be tedious, confusing and inconsistent.

Difficult Application Process

The typical email communications stalled outreach and key information.

Host to Vendor Communication Issues

Vendor interviewees felt they needed more ways to represent their works.

These insights from the interviews helped us create personas for a vendor and attendee, which helped guide considerations for the structure and functionalities of the app.

Bio

She runs marketing for a small business that creates citrus-based snacks and spends hours looking for markets and filling out tedious forms.

Goals

Reach New Customers In-Person
Find Brand-Aligned Markets
Simplified Application Processes

Pain Points

Disorganized Application Process
Limited Discovery of Events
Various External Management Tools

Bio

He is a local photographer who relies on word-of-mouth or the internet to find markets, and finds there's a lack on informational clarity when looking.

Goals

Supporting Local Businesses
Purchasing New Items of Interest
Discovering New Markets

Pain Points

Finding Markets He’d Like
Insufficient Vendor Information
Difficulty Forming Connections

The Result

Presenting Mosaic, a mobile application like no other, allowing attendees of independent creative markets to easily find, explore and stay updated, and vendors to easily discover, apply for events and communicate with hosts.

Vendor Profile

To allow vendors to fully express their mission, story and offerings, I designed this page to allow for simple customizations of their profile photos, banner slideshow, featured products.

Attendee Saved Page

Attendees are able to view their saved events and followed vendors in this page. The ticket view of the saved events was designed to create a more tactile and memorable touchpoint for users.

Market Page

This page was designed to give users a precise rundown of what their market offers. For both vendors and attendees it contains key features such as access to the application form, the list of vendors and in-event map.

In-Event Directory

Depending on the size of the markets, attendees required an easier way to find their favourite vendors within the venue. The in-event map makes it easy to quickly find the booth they’re looking for.

Usability Testing

Following our initial iteration of our interactive prototype, I conducted 7 usability testing interviews. Letting interviewees navigate around through outlined scenarios, we gained insights on key points of friction, which led to the appropriate improvements being made.

Lacking Interaction Clarity

Users found button functions weren’t openly clear, this made us re-evaluate our naming of buttons.

In-Event Map Navigation

Attendees found hard to find vendors, needing to click on each booth to look for them.

Lacking Vendor Respresentation

Vendor interviewees felt they needed more ways to represent their works.

Reflection

This was my first time creating a concept mobile app from the ground up. My most prominent takeaways for the project is the importance of designing with the app's end-users, as opposed to designing for them. By leading user interviews across all stages of the project, it ensured that our final end product matched the goals and needs of our target end-users.

For our interface design course's final project, we were tasked to create a prototyped mobile app for a specific domain and audience: independent creative markets and their contributors + attendees.

I interviewed 5 individuals who are frequent visitors/vendors of local markets to garner their major goals, motivations and pain points. These were the key findings :

Complex Market Discovery

Difficult Application Process

Host to Vendor Communication Issues

These insights from the interviews helped us create personas for a vendor and attendee, which helped guide considerations for the structure and functionalities of the app.

Bio

Goals

Pain Points

Bio

Goals

Pain Points

Presenting Mosaic, a mobile application like no other, allowing attendees of independent creative markets to easily find, explore and stay updated, and vendors to easily discover, apply for events and communicate with hosts.

To allow vendors to fully express their mission, story and offerings, I designed this page to allow for simple customizations of their profile photos, banner slideshow, featured products.

Attendees are able to view their saved events and followed vendors in this page. The ticket view of the saved events was designed to create a more tactile and memorable touchpoint for users.

This page was designed to give users a precise rundown of what their market offers. For both vendors and attendees it contains key features such as access to the application form, the list of vendors and in-event map.

Depending on the size of the markets, attendees required an easier way to find their favourite vendors within the venue. The in-event map makes it easy to quickly find the booth they’re looking for.

Following our initial iteration of our interactive prototype, I conducted 7 usability testing interviews. Letting interviewees navigate around through outlined scenarios, we gained insights on key points of friction, which led to the appropriate improvements being made.

Lacking Interaction Clarity

In-Event Map Navigation

Lacking Vendor Respresentation

Special thanks to my teammates Meghna Rajamohan, Nathan Gebreab, Stephanie Mok, Tae Kim and Tirsten Lisondra.