Chord, A New Way to Collaborate
Chord was conceptualized as an online collaboration platform that enables nonprofits, humanitarian organizations, business, and volunteers to coordinate efforts on similar initiatives. Event organizers would use the platform to post their initiatives and look for collaboration with others. Chord was in their early discovery stage, and looking to get prototypes of a multiple portal webapp, as well as a companion mobile app.
Client:
Chord
Team Size:
3 UX Designers
Duration:
2 Weeks
Category:
UI Design, UX Design, Prototype
Project Objective
The main objective is to validate our client’s concept through primary and secondary research, and bring the MVP product to live.
My Role
Stakeholder Interviews
Sketching and Wireframing
UI Design and Prototyping
Prototype
Discovery
Design to Three Types of Users
We Hit a Roadblock
Dirty little secret of the nonprofit world: nonprofits don’t collaborate well together.
The concept seemed good on paper and provided a solution to a real problem. However, as I performed concept validation and user research, I discovered a roadblock that would ultimately lead to Chord pivoting from their initial concept. As I interviewed charitable organizations and nonprofits, I came to the realization that there was no desire for these organizations to work with one another. Nonprofits and charitable organizations sometimes find themselves as one another’s competitors. Whether it is competing for funding or other reasons, this may detract from collaboration opportunities between these organizations even when they may be shooting for the same goals. This discovery meant that a collaboration platform would not be widely used.
Solution
We need to deliver the bad news… Can we still deliver the prototype?
To solve this issue, our team leveraged the UN’s Global Goals Framework to categorize content by organizational goals and missions.
“In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 goals for a better world by 2030. These goals have the power to end poverty, fight inequality and address the urgency of climate change. Guided by the goals, it is now up to all of us, governments, businesses, civil society, and the general public to work together to build a better future for everyone.”
By offering pre-determined sustainable development goals and initiatives on the event platform, it helped funnel organizations into a single broader cause instead of one-off initiatives that may not resonate with other organizations. This allows organizations to find common grounds in realizing their mission and find strength in unity. Now all types of users (nonprofit organizations, enterprise or individuals) of the Chord platform can create opportunities or find potential partners. This highlighted the importance of designing with users on mind, which I firmly believe is the heart of great user experience design.
Deliverable: Mid-Fi Concept Prototype
We delivered a set of artifacts to our client, including a research report, two sets of mid-fidelity clickable prototypes for web portal and companion mobile app, two sets of high fidelity mockups, and some rough product roadmap as well as some reading material we gathered along the way.
Here’s the clickable prototype for the web portal:
Clickable Prototype
Web Portal Overview
My key design focuses are:
- Clean and info-loaded homepage
- Streamlined onboarding process
- Fine tuned UI composition and experience for different types of users.
- Event creation with throughout details
- Event classification led by United Nations’ Global Goal Initiative
Deliverable: The Mobile App and the "Delight"
I decided to make an easter egg for our client. I put a “Go Hi-Fi” switch button on the bottom of the last page of the mobile app. It was a nice surprise to our clients that we actually throw in a high-fidelity interactive mockup for them to top the project off.
Clickable Prototype
Our clients loved the easter egg 🙂
Homepage UI Design
