CCircle
CCircle is a portfolio sharing, collaboration, and student bonding mobile application. I worked with 3 others on this 24-hour project. As the design lead, I was in charge of the overall branding and design of all of the hi-fi screens for the cohesive look as well as all of the prototyping.
my role + tools
Project management User research Branding Product design
The team
Vivian Nguyen (Design Lead) Steven Tang Azure Otani Christine Hoang
Year
June 6-7, 2020
Problem
Due to the Coronavirus, many students were stripped of their hard-earned summer internships. As a result, there’s a huge surplus of talented young adults who are itching to make use of their empty vacation time, especially now that shelter-in-place orders will likely prevent them from making recreational plans. Parallel to these events, plenty of students are taking the initiative to come up with their own new projects, community initiatives, or business ideas— after all, colleges are hotspots of innovation. The only thing they’re missing? Other like-minded, driven students who are well-versed in the specific skills they’re seeking, whether that’s a design genius, a coding expert, or a marketing guru.
Goal
Our goal is to a mobile app that allows like-minded college students to connect and collaborate on personal projects. We wanted to provide a way for students to share their portfolios, experiences, and ideas with one another.
Understand
Interviews
We interviewed 8 students through messaging and phone calls on their thoughts on what they want to see in a talent-searching app that would allow like-minded college students to collaborate and on personal projects.
Insights
We found that many of the students wanted to see:
- A user-friendly login screen
- Introductory onboarding screens
- A forum to ask questions to the community
- A section for resources that can be filtered to their liking
- A button to share our projects inside or outside of the app
- A search bar to create a better user experience
- 2 students stated that they would like a talent-searching application to be friendly towards non-designers interested in a variety of fields
How can we help college students connect with other like-minded students to collaborate, share their portfolios, and find career resources?
Ideation
This application’s features compare to those such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Dribbble; however, what sets CCircle apart from others is its ability to post creative projects among solely a student community. This helps for people that find difficulty in seeking advice and collaborators, especially during a time of a national pandemic, when social distancing laws are in place.
Features
- Onboarding — How do you use the application? What are you looking for?
- Home Feed — Posts from your friends appear in the “friends” tab, while popular posts appear in the “popular” tab
- Forum and Resources — Two features nested in a community navigation section
- Customizable Profile — Add your university name, field of study, skills, interests, portfolio, and more
- Private Messaging — Group (team) messaging and one-on-one messaging
- Posting — Project post or forum pos
Branding
After finalizing the goals of our project, we decided to name the application. We went for CCircle, which stands for “community circle” or “creative circle,” emphasizing our desire for creative students to feel a sense of community, through our easy-to-use app.
I came up with a branding for the application for consistency, resulting in a universal peach and violet color scheme and a logo. After designing the application, we tested it on one other user to test its usability, and received positive feedback about the easy-going feeling of the colors.
Color Palette
I went for a comforting and welcoming color palette. The primary color styles are a purple gradient and pastels.
Logo
CCircle’s logo, designed in Adobe Illustrator, is a “C” encompassed by a circle — symbolizing how you, as an individual, can feel welcome in this community.
Typography
I chose a modern sans-serif font to use throughout the application as well as the logo itself.
Sketches & UX Flow
My teammate, Christine Hoang, created the initial low-fidelity ideation sketches.
I created a simple UX flow to get the gears going so that we could finish within 24 hours.
Solution
Within 24 hours, we were able to push out a complete prototype of our mobile application, CCircle.
Home + Expanded Project View
Friend Activity & Popular Activity
See your friend’s project posts and popular project posts separated into tabs.
Like, Share, Comment On, and Follow Projects
Want to follow the progress of your friend’s quarantine project? Click on “Follow Project” and you will get notification updates.
Search Users, Topics, or Projects
Categories
Click on a category (i.e. business) to find curated content
Filter Feature
Filter by topic, users, or projects
Post a new Project or a Forum Post
Project Post
Post your newest project so friends can follow your progress
Forum Post
Post in the forum to ask questions, look for collaborators, or share ideas
Community
Forum
A community where users can interact (comment and like) with posts, find collaborators, and ask questions
Resources
A frequently updated tab where people can find career resources in their field
My Profile
My Projects
Like a portfolio, you can view all of your projects in one place
My Forum Posts
You can also view your forum posts separately from your project posts
About
List your institution, bio, interests, and skills
Followed Projects
Return to projects you have followed from earlier
Notifications and Messages
Requests
View, accept, or decline friend requests
Post Alerts
View navigate to projects and posts through new comments, likes, and more
Direct Messages
Personally interact with users through the direct messaging function
Solution
We were informed that we were a a top 8 finalist of the Adobe x CreateSC 2020’s nationwide UI/UX Designathon, so we were able to present our project in front of everyone at the event.
Considering the time crunch of 24 hours, our application turned out to be extremely polished by the end of the designathon, which I was really happy about. However, the downside is that we could not focus more on research. One thing I would focus on in the future is having designated time to do research, rather than designing with little basis on what to design.