SKYSALES
DIGITAL SERVICE INNOVATION
SkySales is a media service for small businesses to live stream on their own website in order to personally connect with customers and diversify their revenue streams. Over the course of 8 weeks, I worked with an interdisciplinary team to narrow down on a viable digital service innovation using Design-Thinking frameworks, user-research methods, and MVP design.
introduction
PROJECT SCOPE, TEAM & ROLES
TEAM /
Sachi Shah, Product Designer
Bill Guo, Program Manager
Al Nejmah, Product Manager
Tia Tang, User Researcher
duration /
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8 weeks
February - May 2021
TOOLS /
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Figma
Canva
Zoom
Miro
Google Suite
METHODS /
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Stakeholder Analysis
Value Flow Diagramming
Persona Design
Contextual Interviews
PESTLE / POG Analysis
MVP Design​
my roles /
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Lead Design initiatives including slide deck design, team branding, low-fidelity prototyping and video-editing
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Adapted Design Thinking processes like dot-voting and Crazy 8's to help narrow down problem scope
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Helped assist in-person user research initiatives including conducting interviews and observational studies
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original pitch - "Biz-create"
PRODUCT OPPORTUNITY GAP & SET FACTORS
PRODUCT OPPORTUNITY /
Increase value in traditional creative degree holders (i.e art majors) while creating a new hiring pipeline for businesses to fill nice requirements and source unique skills.
PROJECT TAKEAWAYS /
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Pitching: Delivered a 1-2 minute pitch to convince other students to join my startup team
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Opportunity Framing: Had to succinctly communicate product opportunity gap, valid social, economic & technological influencers in a short timeframe
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Slide Deck Design: Declutter slides while ensuring it captures important information for users to digest
PIVOT ONE - "Pivoteer"
WHY WE PIVOTED, INSIGHTS & SKILLS GAINED
PIVOT influencers /
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Wanted to increase market-size of opportunity and cater to not only traditional creatives seeking work opportunities
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Saw an opportunity to help professionals with niche skills target industries they wouldn't conventionally consider (i.e event planner transitions to a program manager role in Tech based on organization & communication skills in their former role).
STORYBOARDING /
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Leveraged storyboarding as a method to identify the existing state, the problem identified, and a potential solution in a succinct way
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Storyboarding focuses on a specific use case to illustrate a practical scenario our solution targets
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Storyboard illustrated on Procreate
PESTLE, SET & POG ANALYSIS /
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Used PESTLE analysis framework to look at the macro trends in the landscape that might influence our startup idea (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal & Environmental)
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Research process helped us validate the timing for our startup given factors like COVID displacing jobs, the trend for diversifying streams of income, and advancements in AI and ML in recommendation algorithms
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Defining a Product Opportunity Gap helped narrow the scope of the problem our product is tackling
PERSONA DESIGN /
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Identified key users of our service and created "profiles" outlining their story, behaviors, goals, motivations and frustrations
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Persona design helped us define the various stakeholders who can benefit from our product
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Considered the different needs users might have based on their background and motivations
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Helped narrow down what features and functionality our product would require to meet these needs and define target customer segments.
Final Pivot - "SKYSALES"
WHY WE PIVOTED, CUSTOMER RESEARCH & MVP
PIVOT influencers /
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Needed to narrow on a specific industry because of how broad the former idea was
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Saw an opportunity in Sales due to huge increase in e-commerce, displacement of retail sales assistants due to COVID, and advancements in live-streaming technology
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Researched relevant PESTLE / SET factors to help validate product idea and need.
VALUE FLOW MODEL /
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Used Value Flow Model to map out the exchange between key stakeholders of our service
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Identified small business owners, sales-people, and online shoppers as the key users who form an eco-system for Skysales
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Helpful in defining the value proposition of SkySales in relation to various users and ensuring various needs are met
customer research insights /
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Conducted contextual interviews, directed-storytelling, observation, and semi-structured interviews to collect user feedback for our service
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Recorded user-research from fifteen participants, split between salesmen, online shoppers, and career-shifters​
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Very helpful in uncovering trends about consumer behavior and business owner pain-points.
MVP VIDEO PITCH /
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Edited a video pitch showcasing our value proposition, the problem space, and low-fidelity interactive wireframes of our solution
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Showcased video and pitched our start-up to a group of stakeholders to receive feedback on the feasibility and usefulness of our design.