Experiment 01
Wayfarer
Designlab's prerequisite course for UX Academy needed a final project to evaluate students' knowledge and skills in user interface design. As the team’s learning experience designer and in-house expert in digital product design, I developed a project brief with multiple deliverables, an assessment criteria, and an example of what an exceptional submission would look like. I approached the creation of the sample assets as if I were a designer at a real startup. I conducted market research, considered business goals, interviewed five potential users, created provisional personas, and designed desktop and mobile screens.
Project Type
User Interface Design, Instructional Design
January - February 2021
Timeline
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, User Interviews, OptimalSort, Google Docs, Pen and Paper
Tools
Status
Done / Released
The branding and design firm you work for has been approached by Wayfarer, a new technology-driven travel agency, to create a feature-rich mobile application. Wayfarer requests this application to be an all-in-one platform for travelers to discover new destinations worldwide, create itineraries, book accommodations and activities, store paperwork, and, most importantly, connect with an agent.
Although most believe the era of getting help with planning and booking a trip is over, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that “employment of travel agents is projected to grow 5 percent from 2020 to 2030.” While this is a slower growth rate compared to other occupations, it shows that this area of work is not dead, and there is room for innovation.
The travel and tourism industry is expected to be one of the fastest-growing industries globally, mainly because of the pent-up demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wayfarer is determined to take a bite out of this market by doing what other travel agencies have failed to do in the past, like having a strong online presence, offering real-time bookings, and creating unique itineraries.
Wayfarer’s target audience is anyone between the ages of 20 and 35 who travels frequently and is searching for new adventures. Through some user research, Wayfarer discovered that almost all frequent travelers rely on four or more apps to help them with their flights, accommodations, and activities. Wayfarer wants to help their customers by minimizing the number of apps needed to travel and making going on adventures to new places easier.
Project Brief
Wayfarer has put together the following vision for their new digital product:
Wayfarer is a travel agency and trip planning tool of the same name that helps customers find unique destinations around the world and then bring these life-changing trips to fruition painlessly.
Vision Statement
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Research Deliverables
Design Deliverables
Competitive Analysis
01
02
Provisional Persona
03
Use Case Scenarios
Business and Consumer Goals
04
05
Brand Style Guide
06
Component Library
07
Wireframe Sketches
High-Fidelity Wireframes
08
Experiment 02
Modura
E-commerce web design has been a reliable source of freelance work over the past six years. I’ve designed (or redesigned) shopping cart features, email sign-up modals, product pages, and responsive home pages. However, many of the brands I worked with didn’t have standalone mobile apps. Knowing that most e-commerce companies eventually develop a mobile app, I dreamed up a clothing brand called Modura and designed several screens to go back to my previous clients with. My goal was to help them envision a more convenient way for their customers to purchase their products. I eventually reused the brief and expanded on it for one of the courses I developed at Designlab.
Project Type
Branding, Mobile (iOS) Design
Timeline
March 2021
Adobe Illustrator, Figma, Panobook, Rotring 600
Tools
Status
Done
Project Brief
Modura is a new e-commerce clothing brand for trendy men and women between 18 and 25 years old. These individuals are early in their careers and looking for affordable business casual clothing to wear to work in urban areas. They also tend to be on social media and keep up-to-date with fashion trends. Most of Modura’s customers like to sport a lot of neutrals with an occasional splash of color.
Modura is looking for a refreshed brand identity along with high-fidelity mobile app mock-ups. Initially, they’d like to see three distinctly different logo directions before choosing one and having small, medium, and large responsive configurations made. In anticipation of a mobile app, they’d like samplings of custom iconography, button states, colors, and font pairings. As a starting point, the mobile app design should have pages for at least three from the following screen options: login/sign up, home page showing latest offers on garments, product page showing details of an individual item, search results page, or account settings.
01
Initial Sketches
02
Logo Concepts
03
Color Exploration
04
Font Pairings
05
Finalized Style Tile
06
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Experiment 03
typewritr
Continuing with this theme of experimentation and exploration in digital product design, typewritr, is a project focused on responsive web design. typewritr is a fictional start-up that produces a new distraction-free laptop for professional writers. My primary goal with this project was to master Figma's auto layout feature.
Project Type
Responsive Web Design
Timeline
June 2020
Figma, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Panobook
Tools
Status
Done / Released
Wireframe Explorations
Responsive Wireframes
Experiment 04
BrandNews
BrandNews was a start-up out of Virginia that was attempting to elevate local news while also circulating the opinions of real people in one’s zip code. When the company approached me, they had a team of four and were in the process of securing series A funding for their new app idea. To impress judges and potential funders at an upcoming pitch competition, they enlisted me to quickly develop the brand identity and a prototype. Note that I’m including this older project because it demonstrates where my digital product design skills were in 2015 and how far I’ve advanced them since then. This is an artifact that I’m proud of, regardless of how impractical or ugly it may be.
Client
BrandNews
Team
Bernadette Fitzgerald
Project Type
Branding, Mobile (iOS) Design
Timeline
February - March 2015
Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Marvel, InVision
Tools
Status
Done / Released
