ArtAlly
ArtAlly's concept is a mobile app that would provide a platform for creative individuals in higher education and in the professional field to develop mentor-mentee relationships.
In this project, I worked with a back-end developer to plan, code, and design the app. As the UX Designer for the team, I designed a mobile app using Adobe XD and provided files that would be compatible with X-Code for the back-end developer.
Note: This project was created in 48 hours as a submission for the world's largest female and non-binary hackathon, Technica.
Personas
Our personas for this app were based on professionals in the creative industry and students at traditional four-year colleges.
Ideation
During ideation of this app, my team posed a few questions about the app including:
How do students show their personalities and interests?
How can they find a mentor right for them?
Who can sign up to be a mentor and mentee?
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As we brainstormed, we decided that hashtags can be used to show general interests in the creative field. Moreover, we decided having an option to scroll through photos provided in mentor/mentee profiles would allow individuals better understand one another before reaching out to the network. Finally, we decided that the app should be available to traditional four-year college students through partnering with university career services. As for mentors, anyone with a career can sign up for the position.
Visual Identity+Â Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Once I had a general vision of what functions the platform should provide, from there I started mapping out the information architecture and sketched the wireframes that would become the base of the platform's screens. After that, I developed the visual identity of that app.
Final Product + Takeaways
Due to the 48 hour time constraint of the hackathon, only 6 screens and a menu were created for the platform. The biggest challenge posed during this project was figuring out how to send connect the design with the back-end, as it was my first time working with a developer. Moreover, it was the back-end coder's first time working with a designer.
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The major takeaway from this project was learning collaboration practices between front-end and back-end developers on a mobile development team.
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One major improvement that could be implemented is designing a page and/or function that verifies a student's status.
