Work
Ariela Basson 
Phase 2: 

Design

Now that Taylor’s needs were established and features were prioritized, it was time to also prioritize a user flow. Due to the compact timeline of this project, I opted to focus on a user facing flow first (instead of the club administrator side of the app.) One thing was clear: the user flow began at opening the app and ended once the user had joined a book club that met their needs. The question then was what came in between these benchmarks?





Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize. 
(& prioritize some more.)

For my low-fi prototype, I decided to focus on certain features over others.

FIRST PRIORITY FEATURES:
  • Clear log in and sign up experiences

  • Dashboard with book clubs to which the user belongs for immediate and easy access to important information

  • A clear search experience and easily navigable filters that address user needs for book clubs

  • Options to save clubs so that viewers can gather them and then weigh their option




Time to test.

The next step was to begin user testing (early and often)! After testing with various users, I was able to gain valuable design insights.

Finding 01.Overall, all three users found the user flow and experience to be clear. The filters were the strongest point of clarity, receiving praise on their navigability.

Finding 02.After testing, it was clear that time was not important to the user’s journey. Misclicks were the most important success metric.

On average, Task 1 had 1.5 misclicks per user, while Task 2 had 2 misclicks per user. 

Finding 03.Through my testing, I realized that my test instructions weren’t very clear, perhaps leading to confusion and misclicks. I needed to be more specific to guide the user towards the happy path, without directly revealing it.



After conducting user tests, I affinity mapped my data into 6 
different insights in order to improve my product to best appeal to users like Taylor.

01.I prioritized saving clubs before joining them.

02.I was confused about where to find clubs I joined. 

03.I was confused about what lived on the profile.
04.I was confused about what lived on the saved clubs page and where to find saved clubs.
05.I would like the filter interactions to be refined and filter category options to be expanded.
06.Task wording confused me.
I misclicked because the task at hand was not clear to me.







As I considered Plotters’ brand identity, I referred to book store, book clubs, and stationary for inspiration.


I wanted Plotters to feel vintage and warm evoking the nostalgia of pre-pandemic in-person book clubs, but also still fresh and modern.






ColorNamed after famous authors and book media, the Plotters colors represent the brand's core themes of nostalgia, warmth, and modernity.





TypographyBookmania represents vintage nostalgia and Golos Text symbolizes modernity.













Final 
(for now) product

After user testing, I was able to not only apply the testing insights, but also apply those lessons as I added more content to my high-fidelity designs. 

WHAT MADE HIGH-FI DIFFERENT
  • Applied user testing revision action items

  • Added imagery for important context points and refined icons
  • Added new pages and cards based on user testing needs such as club cards, individual club pages, tags, a profile page, and an onboarding experience

  • Applied branding, color styling, and type systems that were compatible with accessibility testing for contrast, colors, 
and typography 










arielabasson@gmail.com