AccessTeams

SaaS Web App

background

AccessTeams is one of the new products offered by Access, which was created by Moken Startups, a hub for founders and startups. Access is a global platform and community designed for early-stage founders and startups looking to build, grow, accelerate, and scale. AccessTeams is an always-on, full-service technology agency that delivers a fully managed process to build any business, startup, or venture.

problem

The problems AccessTeams were trying to solve were: reduce friction points for selling and facilitate a streamline process for clients and the agency team, streamline the client conversion rate with less human capital, and reduce the dependency on human project management and reduce risks, while increasing flexibility for dynamic teams.

goal

To understand the current process a startup specialist takes in interacting with a client, making a sale, and project managing throughout the project and how that process could be automated in way that was still simple to use for all parties.

ROLE

One of four Product Designers

timeline

October - December 2021

Process

1. Empathize
Understand how user's thoughts about mental health has changed over time
2. Define
Design an app that would have mental health and wellness resources in one place
3. Ideate
Create sketches and wireframes of a user's first-time experience of signing up for the app, logging their mood, and getting relevant resources
4. Prototype
Create high-fidelity wireframes and prototypes to test task flows
5. Test
Test prototypes to confirm usability and sense of the task flows

1. Empathize

Understand the current market for agencies and hear from different users what they are looking for in this kind of product. This was done with market research, competitive analysis, user interviews, and a user survey.
Market Research
  • Startups tend to consider outsourcing agencies when they do not have the bandwidth and resources
  • Over 99% of US businesses are considered small (less than 500 employees)
  • Most digital design agencies price on fixed bids and retainer pricing, which validates AccessTeam's use of package pricing and potentially subscription-based pricing
  • Most commonly offered services were web design/development, UX design/strategy, and digital strategy
  • People are valuing independence and flexibility of freelance work
Competitive Analysis
User Interviews

"Mental health is something important to have a daily check on, like how is my mental health? What are the things that are causing anxiety and stress?"

Goals

  • Automate the sales and project management process
  • Platform to could help the clients be more self-sufficient

Needs

  • Communication and updates on project
  • Reduction on human capital
  • Capacity planning on talent side

Frustrations

  • Current process is too manual
  • Too many different platforms used

Motivations

  • Automated and integrated platform that is easy to use for clients, startup specialists, and talent
User Survey
  • 50% of participants said they currently work with agencies or freelance/contract designers to design their products
  • 50% said they would consider hiring a digital product agency that would guide their product from conception to completion, strategizing, iterating, designing, validating and testing throughout the engagement
  • 42% said their primary goal in hiring a digital product agency would be to create a long-term relationship to fulfill projects as needed
  • 71% said an important factor in working with a digital product agency was they had proven experience in launching products/services
Key Findings
  • There is a need for digital product agencies, especially for startups
  • On the talent side, more and more people like having control of their hours and work
  • There is a desire for the process of connecting clients to the agencies to be automated
Possible Solutions
  1. Create an automated platform that connects clients to the agency and can help them with a variety of needs and build their startup

2. Define

Based on research data and user interviews, we defined the problems and possible solution in creating a product that would meet user and business needs through different artifacts. Due to timing, we focused on the startup specialist as the main user of this platform. We created an empathy map and persona for Julia, a product feature list, and a task flow for some of the things a startup specialist would need to accomplish while using this platform.
empathy map
persona
PRODUCT FEATURE LIST
Goal of these features:
  • Streamline the process for client and startup specialist
  • Help reduce dependency on human project management
  • Provide a way for client, talent, and startup specialist to be updated and kept in the loop on project status, etc. with minimal communication
USER STORIES
Because we focused on one user, the startup specialist, we created different user stories of the different tasks they could complete throughout the platform. We mainly focused on tasks they could complete in the Sales Hub since that was the first and main point of contact a client would have with a startup specialist in order to go through the sales process. I focused on creating and designing the flow for one particular user story, in which the startup specialist would complete tasks within the Resources Library.
TASK FLOWS
The main task flows the startup specialist might take would be to view a particular document within the Resources Library and to upload a new document into the Resources Library.

3. ideate

Based on the two previous steps and using the established design system and sister product as a base, the team was able to begin designing the screens and flows. I focused on the Resources Library view page with both grid and list views, the page with states, the resource document page, and the uploading process.
EXISTING PAGES & low-fidelity wireframes
Resources Library: List View
Resources Library: Grid View
Resources Library: Document Page
Resources Library: Upload Document
HIGH-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
HIGH-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES - UPLOADING DOCUMENT

next steps

The apprenticeship came to an end so as a team, we did not get as far as we would've liked. However, the internal team at Moken Startups will continue to build out the platform keeping in mind some of the screens and elements our team has built that got added to their design system.

Overall, I felt like I learned a lot working on a team with other Product Designers, understanding what their process was, and understanding their "whys." At first, I thought working with an established design system would limit creativity as we were designing and building out a completely new platform, but the limitations actually helped to keep the team's screen designs and the products consistent in look, feel, and experience across the board.

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© Copyright 2024 Tina Yip