Starting a business is a daunting, difficult process, and securing loans through traditional banks is time-consuming, arduous, and complicated.

GenEQTY is a neo banking app for women led Small to Medium businesses (SMBs). GenEQTY will help empower women to make smart business decisions and acquire loans/ avoid the traditional loan process which involves stress, patience, and often times denial due to a systemic gender biased system. Systematic bias influences women's opportunities to obtain funding, while factors like a lack of access to relevant business training and counseling may also affect the volume of applicants. While women own 30% of small businesses, they receive only 16% of conventional loans, 7% of venture funds, and only 4.4% of conventional small business loan dollars. GenEQTY seeks to address this gap by creating a financial technology (fintech) solution that makes it easier for women-led enterprises to secure funding and manage finances.

Users:

Women-led Small to Medium businesses (SMBs) who seek to streamline their business banking needs, obtain credit for operational needs, and secure capital for growth

Goals:

Empower women to start small business and get loans

The goal of this phase is to gain a general understanding and awareness of the financial technology (fintech) space, issues in modern and mobile banking, and the experience of female business owners. Increase familiarity with financial vocabulary and fintech. Gain a general understanding of issues in modern and mobile banking. Acquire an awareness of the experiences of female business owners to identify pain points and opportunity areas.

Research

The GenEQTY team and I started with secondary research on existing financial technologies (fintech) and digital banking apps to identify strengths and weaknesses in existing products. We interviewed subject matter experts in person and remotely to learn about lending practices and gain insights into regulations and partnership models.

After collecting research insights, data, and synthesizing handoff documents we moved forward with an affinity diagram to help us wrap our heads around what we learned, and find common themes in our research.

We learned that users value the tone of the apps they use for credit cards and banking. They also want or want to feel like there is a real relationship being built between them and their banker.

We also assessed user feelings towards tone using mood boards

Prototype

An online survey we deployed to our personal networks helped us gain additional insights into the attitudes towards business banking practices. We created Sarah, a user persona who represents the average user that we designed the GenEQTY app for.

Sarah guided us in designing content tone and user flows that demonstrate the findings from our research. We created low-fidelity app feature cards to evaluate.

Evaluate

We evaluated and dot voted a select amount of features and user flows before our upcoming design critique to focus on moving forward with

The goal of this phase is to design and create medium fidelity prototypes (and a few high-fidelity examples) of proposed feature for evaluation. Over the course of this phase, prototypes, content, and visual direction will be evaluated with users to determine the efficacy of our proposed app flow and clarity of features with potential users. Determine what core features would constitute an MVP as well as “stretch” features. Information architecture diagrams, Visual and content style guide, Interactive design prototype

Research

Development of content strategy guidelines. Development of visual style guidelines. Define information architecture.

Prototype

As our screens start to come together, we started seeing an app prototype being built from the ground up. I created the credit card prototypes and monthly reoccurring payments screen pictured below. Kris Kathmann, a design team member created the dashboard check in on the left

Evaluate

My team hosted a design critique with other professionals in the Minneapolis area to help evaluate our design direction, user story, and medium fidelity prototypes before the check in with our client.

Review low-fidelity prototypes and key user flows with client for accuracy. Review content and visual style concepts for feedback.

Prototype

We created a marketing web page teach users what GenEQTY can do for them and their small business. The web page will help direct prospect users to download the app in the app store

Based on insights from our design critique with users, we prioritized a feature set, started adding fidelity, and created interaction within our prototype. Final interactive design prototypes will be created to demonstrate screenflows of key features with recommended content, visual look, and feel. Create and synthesize documents for handoff to client and and present project.

Implement insights gained during user evaluation and client check in to refine and raise fidelity of prototypes. Create annotated wireframes of key prototype features for client communication.

Evaluate

Client handoff documentation and assets package created. Creating an organized system of files I uploaded documents into files by category: a read me file with instruction of how to use the overall deliverable, and what is in each file, presentation, design assets, source files, raw research data, strategy, persona, video walkthroughs, and annotated wireframes

• Kris Kathmann

• Maddi Wichert

• Andrew Hall

• Tyler Kimmons

Communication is crucial to create the best user experience for Blizzards weekly ski and snowboard trips. Enhancing the experience of RSVPing and the staff portal will create one larger cohesive service system for all users.

When members don’t respond to event RSVPs it takes an opportunity away from people on the member waiting list and confusion for management. RSVPs for members are sent via email and helps Blizzard keep members in the same groups, week to week, make sure there is enough staff, and make sure there isn’t an excess of staff.

The staff portal holds valuable information for staff regarding event dates and times, clinics to receive certifications, and helpful resources that teach staff how to be better instructors. The unordered list of a staff portal has compiled information and different pages over 5+ years. Navigating the staff portal is difficult and unconducive of its goal to help better the staff and their practice.

USERS:

• Management- needs cohesive communication from members and staff to plan for weekly events accordingly in a small time period

• Staff- need a portal that is navigable

• Members- need to respond to RSVPs for best overall experience

GOALS:

• Increase member engagement and communication

• Increase RSVP response

• Increase use of staff portal

Parents of members receive RSVP requests via email consistently each week. Currently, the communication system receives an average 90% response rate. Sent on Sunday night at 10:00pm with a due date of Thursday 8:00pm. I dove to find how I can improve communication between members and management. When RSVPs are not responded to by members parents, Blizzard assumes the chance that they still might show up to accommodate comfort on the busses.

I initially began my research by running heuristics on the current RSVP form. Heuristics failed to prove any significant issues with the RSVP form, While the focus was the RSVP system, I was unable to find any issues with the RSVP form through contextual inquiries. I took a new approach and realized the issues surrounding no responses from members was not in the form itself, but opening the email and clicking on RSVP form link. This breakthrough paved the path towards being able to provide Blizzard with a more engaging communication system! I knew what to do following, conduct microcopy research and start focusing on what the user receiving RSVP requests really need to see, and what are they currently seeing? How do they feel when they open a Blizzard email?

76% wanted a reminder email

60% feel Blizzard emails don’t fit their schedule

A cognitive walkthrough of the Blizzard staff portal showed areas for improvement in the information architecture and creating subject areas for links and forms to be filled into. Staff see the value in the portal for them, but research proved that it was difficult for them to operate the page efficiently. The portal provides access for the staff to be able to reach out to their groups throughout the week reminding them to bring extra warm clothes on a cold weekend, send out progress reports, find coaching materials, and certification study guides.

The new microcopy provides greater clarity before the email is even opened. You can see where the weekend trip is, when it is, and when the RSVP is due.

Open the email, and you will find that you can add both the date of the trip and due date to your calendar by tapping the underlined dates. Previously the RSVP link was at the bottom of the email, and users turned away from the email before scrolling to find it. I brought the RSVP link higher in the email to give better clarity and proper hierarchy. At the bottom of the email is a light hearted note mentioning that every response is valuable and helps Blizzard’s logistics to overall provide a better experience for the kids.

Users

• Product Managers needing to communicate product changes to customers efficiently

• Individuals looking for updates on the products they are using or selling

One of the largest issues perceived in this space is delivering PCN’s to the end user. There is no accountability system for distributors to hand off PCN’s from manufacturers to the end user. Emails and informal documents have been proved by research to be sufficient for small operations, however Project Mercury is hoping to achieve a larger goal.

Its tedious work to create a PCN/NPI/EOL and due to the informal process, is very easy to make mistakes, miss important information, and make sure it gets to everyone who needs it. They are often handed from person to person in hopes that’s they make their way down the chain to the end user. What happens when the end user doesn’t get any PCN’s? The end users spend hours wasted on the phone talking to distributers who need to talk to manufacturers to get simple answers such as “why is this part going out of production? Where will I get these parts now? How long do I have to purchase these parts still?”. Some tools currently used to communicate PCN’s are email, Dropbox and Microsoft Word.

Users

• Clients looking to hire freelancers to complete small-scale projects

• Early-career individuals looking to acquire project work and advance their skills

• Established professionals wanting to give back to their communities

Site Goals

• Facilitate networking between early-career individuals and established professionals

• Easily connect those looking for work with those wanting to take on a new project

Test Goal

• Evaluate how well site connects students with mentors and clients, and communicates credibility of users. Identify users pain points surrounding usability. Identify opportunities to strengthen communication of sites value.

Heuristic Analysis

After settling into our understanding of the user goals, my design team and I used the Nielsen Norman Group’s 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design using a severity scale of 1-3. Each team member took on a different user role. Mine was the student role where I tested these tasks:

• Search for jobs

• Apply for a job

• Invite mentor to a job

After running heuristics, we came up with our testing goals.

• Identify user pain points surrounding ease of use

• How well does Skill Sense communicate credibility of site and users?

Usability tests:

In-lab and remote usability testing were conducted to get directly to the trouble points of Skill Sense’s website. I learned so much during my first usability test. My design team and I constructed an evaluation script with one to three scenarios to walk through per role. Framing scenarios in a way that doesn’t lead the user in any specific direction was a difficult task. Further, asking those questions to the users and watching them become frustrated or upset over functions not being available is hard to watch and even harder not to intervene and help correct or lead them.

Remote testing:

Capturing feelings and emotions through digital platforms is a difficult task. Remote testing samples were gathered from personal connections. In remote sessions I had three users who fit the roles of actual users of SkillSense, a client user who owns an IT company, a practitioner in the tech space who has mentored in the past, and a user who is a recent graduate with a degree in computer science looking for work.

Google Hangouts and Quicktime screen recordings along with consent forms created a uniform ecosystem of platforms to conduct remote testing. How i recruited? what i learned (challenge, different next time)

Key findings/ usability pain points(include images)

Users showed confusion after logging in and landing on their profile page. Many comments suggested to have seen a home feed of sorts rather than your profile dashboard and felt confused after login.

Conceptualize an ecosystem of devices to help people age in home longer using existing 3M product.

It’s hard to feel comfortable with letting your parents live at home as their age comes with declining health concerns. From physical to cognitive health declines, these challenges are facing us all. Our stakeholders came requesting we conceptualize a group of interconnected devices that will allow aging people to age in home longer. The devices will help children of parents with declining health feel comfortable to live at home by themselves. No parents want to leave home before they feel ready, with 3Ms smart ecosystem of devices, you will be able to monitor your loved ones without having them feel monitored. In fact, it’s an engaging system that will help them with daily tasks to live at home safely and responsibly while keeping you in the loop.

After meeting with our stakeholders from 3M we had to ask ourselves

Who are the users?

• 60-80 year old people with declining health

• Children 40-60 years old who take place as caregivers

Methods:

• Stakeholder Interview

• Research and debrief with team

• Create a strategy statement

• Experience Map

• System of IoT prototypes

• Multi-touchpoint experience walkthrough

This raises massive concern for many reasons. The United States doesn’t have infrastructure in place to support this magnitude of people. With the number of aging people on the rise, we have to consider how these people will be cared for. Research shows that minor hospital visits can lead to longer term health concerns and ambulance services are flooded from minor emergencies preventable by emerging technologies.

I dove to find 3M products that we could use from plastics, glass, temperature readers to foams and sensors. Using those products to conceptualize a device that would help aging people remember to go on walks and communicate with other devices in it’s ecosystem cohesively creating a safer environment for people to age in home longer.

Where the gaps are and how can we close them?

We dove deep and conducted secondary research on how people are aging in home and whats stopping them from successfully doing so. We found the gaps in the system and conceptualized our ways to make those gaps smaller. We know it can be difficult to get a parent using tech to its fuller capabilities, so our concepts had to be creative in a way so that aging people wont run into frustrations using them.

Where are the opportunities?

I found that some of the key problems in this space are created by feelings of loneliness and fear of losing independence. Multigenerational homes are a thing of the 20th century and those feelings of having grandparents living with their children are still profoundly held feelings to them because they’ve experienced it themselves. These feelings manifest into larger themes like lack of communication with family and grandchildren, not enough time to help, living alone and an overall lack of help. There are technologies and systems currently working to close these gaps such as pill dispensers, delivery systems, analytic systems that keep doctors informed on patient health without needing to see the patient, and aging friendly smart devices. Our map bridges the gap between hospital caregiving and the home. The map pulls together many facets of the healthcare for the stages of life between the strong ability to live alone verse needing help on a day to day basis. We are keeping families informed and assured that their loved ones are keeping on track with day to day necessities such as moving, eating and security.

”All user experience touch points for 3M In-Home Healthcare will help caregivers providing care to 60-80 year old aging individuals with early signs of dementia and/or general declining health to feel reassured & engaged so that they are able to help these aging individuals age-in-place. We will do this by focusing on communication & reinforcing well being while maintaining independence.”

Several studies have found that nursing home residents have worse health outcomes than seniors who choose to age in place, even if seniors are in similar health. Our system is aimed to be preventative. Our devices use existing 3M tech: data and analytical science, electronic systems, software solutions, connected systems, healthcare data management and other products such as high density foams and temperature sensors. We want to create an experience where our elders can be monitored without feeling monitored.

Introducing Seat Buddy:

Seat buddy is an interconnected device that communicates with the other devices in the 3M health care ecosystem. When seat buddy’s haptics activate, you’ll also find a corresponding message on the smart frame interface with phrases such as “it looks like you’ve been sitting for a while, lets take a walk”, “looks like its time to eat!”, “have you had your meds today?” Seat buddy is made using 3M’s temperature sensors, open cell polyurethane foam and closed cell high density foam.

Seat Buddy interacts with the other devices in our ecosystem. When someone interacts with Smart Entry, you will be notified who is at the front door with haptic feedback from your Seat Buddy along with being able to see who is at the door from your chair with the corresponding Smart Frame. Seat Buddy communicates with the Smart Fridge by using haptics with corresponding messages from Smart Frame about when you should have a meal or a glass of water. Seat Buddy also lets you now when you’ve been sitting for a while to encourage you to get up or move around. Hoping that moving around will prevent hotspots following with open sores and infection. Our SmartCare Sensor is the joining hub of our ecosystem.

3 layers = 4” thick

1. Upper- open cell foam for breathability and comfort

2. Center- wiring for haptic feedback and temperature sensors

3. Bottom- super dense foam for stability

We’ve made tactics and implemented the ideas, we’ve created the design principles and experience strategy. In the future, We would work with businesses to create a strategy that is feasible and attainable to achieve our North Star goal. We would like to gamify some aspects of our system that is geared towards patients with declining cognitive health. I believe our in home Smart Frame could include interactive memory activities to help patients remember loved ones and family members. This application would help patients remember they have family letting them remember they are not alone, as well as being able to remember who the faces they might see on a day to day or weekly basis.

Looking For a Favor?

“Runerra is a community run app that connects those already at the store with people nearby who need something. Individuals can share their location or errand with others in their communities in order to digitize the “I’m at the store, do you need anything?” conversation. Those who need groceries or other items can request them and avoid delivery fees by jumping on an existing run. Runerra’s vision is to challenge the traditional delivery model while encouraging individuals to form new friendships, strengthening connections within communities, and empowering local business to connect with new and loyal patrons.”

-Stakeholder

Users:

• Runners: Looking to help out a friend/neighbor by picking up items for them while they do their own errands.

• Buyers: Looking to get groceries, food, etc. picked up for them at an affordable cost

Goals:

• Match user expectations by demonstrating support for users needs

• Create features for the app that resonate

Kano Analysis

Kano analysis is a quality measurement tool used to determine which functions are important. All identified functions may not be of equal importance to all users. Kano analysis helps rank functions for different users to determine which have the most value to their experience. The Kano analysis are the synthesized findings from a Kano survey sent out to professionals in the field. The survey contained ten dominating rapid prototypes through a dot vote by 15 UX designers from a selection of 40 prototypes. The survey prompted users with two questions “how do you feel when this function is present? How do you feel when this function is absent?”. The data displayed the value users held towards the functions they were presented. Our functions fit into the realm of high satisfaction and expected functions with outliers landing in “surprising/delighted”.

Rapid Prototyping

The Kano analysis proved syncing contacts at onboarding will give new users the opportunity to see if any of their friends use the app. The more contacts they have using the app, the more trust, credibility, and comfort it will give new users.

Favorites and recents with a map view proved to be a highly satisfying and performance function.

Interactive Prototypes

Prototypes built in Axure allowed me to deliver an interactive prototype to the client and let me test the interactivity of screens in the app. The Kano analysis gave me direction as to what features resonate with my users. Understanding the interactivity will help me strengthen the features that resonate most with users. To get a better idea, download the PDF below.

Since the work I have completed for Runerra, they have gone under a complete redesign and relaunched the app as Pikup including the new features such as map view and notification settings. Runerra’s vision is large, and with the help of UX Research and Design they will be able to create a community of users who help each other complete daily tasks.

Directed Story Telling

To start, I turned to a qualitative research method to discover how people felt purchasing flights through commercial airlines. I started with three directed story-telling interviews. I prompted the interviewees with: “Tell me about a time you booked a flight through a commercial airline”.

Goals:

The goals of my research are to create a website that will better fit the needs of my personas. My personas help me create an overall happy-medium to what the larger population of users will need.