Bountiful: Sustainability & Collaboration
Case Study
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Bountiful is a pre-seed startup focused on building a platform in which a global community can collaborate to help accelerate the commercialization of sustainable technologies. Targeting researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry partners in the science fields, Bountiful hopes to work with others to change the world.
Phase 1 Challenge: Bountiful wants to further define their vision to build an engaging and usable platform upon the three pillars of connect, collaborate and commercialize.
Phase 1 Constraints:
• Timeframe: 5 weeks
• Beta website developed and live
Phase 1 Solution: A reassessment of the three current pillars, various updates for increased usability on the beta website, and a forum-like page for the “collaboration” tool.
Phase 2 Challenge: Design a user-friendly collaboration tool that will encourage user engagement to ultimately create a thriving community.
Phase 2 Constraints:
• Timeframe: 2 months
• Pivot to third-party platform to host collaboration tool (after high fidelity wireframes for tool were designed)
Phase 2 Solution: A forum that is personalized to users with the ability to follow people within the Bountiful community, create and upvote posts, message other users, and contribute to industry problem statements.
PHASE 1 –
Role: Competitive research, UI Design
Time: 5 weeks
Tools: Figma, Zoom, Otter
PHASE 2 –
Role: UX/UI Design
Time: 2 months
Tools: Figma, Maze, Zoom, Otter, Circle
Time: 5 weeks
Tools: Figma, Zoom, Otter
PHASE 2 –
Role: UX/UI Design
Time: 2 months
Tools: Figma, Maze, Zoom, Otter, Circle
PHASE 1
As someone with very little knowledge of the scientific research and technology commercialization world, there was clearly a lot of question-asking and research that needed to be done. Thankfully, I was working with a team of 4 to help me in this quest.
Whenever I begin a project, I have lots of...
Questions:
1. What is Bountiful (and what could Bountiful be)?
2. Who are our target users?
3. What are our users’ needs in the sustainable technology space?
4. Who are our competitors?
5. How can we differentiate Bountiful from its competitors?
With these questions in mind, our team began with research. Bountiful had already conducted user interviews with 18 individuals in the scientific research or sustainable technology industry, so another teammate and I were tasked with competitive research. We also conducted a heuristic evaluation, which would play a key role in determining the usability of the current beta website. Afterwards, with a better understanding of the market, our team collaborated on an empathy map to find valuable insight about our users’ needs.
Whenever I begin a project, I have lots of...
Questions:
1. What is Bountiful (and what could Bountiful be)?
2. Who are our target users?
3. What are our users’ needs in the sustainable technology space?
4. Who are our competitors?
5. How can we differentiate Bountiful from its competitors?
With these questions in mind, our team began with research. Bountiful had already conducted user interviews with 18 individuals in the scientific research or sustainable technology industry, so another teammate and I were tasked with competitive research. We also conducted a heuristic evaluation, which would play a key role in determining the usability of the current beta website. Afterwards, with a better understanding of the market, our team collaborated on an empathy map to find valuable insight about our users’ needs.
Team collaboration on empathy map
Insights:
-
Researchers reluctantly rely on multiple resources to network
-
Researchers interested in entrepreneurship lack the support to do so successfully
- Researchers have the desire to collaborate with others but lack the knowledge to be able to do so in a way where their ideas are protected
Needs:
-
Researchers need an efficient resource for networking
-
Researchers need support to be able to commercialize their work
- Researchers need education in understanding legal protections around their work to confidently collaborate with others
After gaining these insights and a better understanding of our users’ needs, we reframed these into HMW (how might we) statements to pave the way for brainstorming solutions as a team. We voted on the various HMW statements and landed on the following two:
And thus begins the brainstorm
Tasked with the UI design with a fellow teammate, we sought to focus on the visual solutions that would help our users feel supported in their commercialization endeavors as well as increase the rate of patents being licensed to industry.
The main thought that drove my UI design decisions was: person to person connections have to be made before researchers can create a startup or TTOs (technology transfer offices) can find an industry partner to commercialize their patent. How might we increase these human connections through the user interface design?
The main thought that drove my UI design decisions was: person to person connections have to be made before researchers can create a startup or TTOs (technology transfer offices) can find an industry partner to commercialize their patent. How might we increase these human connections through the user interface design?
Current Homepage Opportunities (left)
Low Fidelity Wireframe Solutions (right)
- Icons and sub-headings in this section do not correspond with page labels in navigation bar
- “WHO IS BOUNTIFUL FOR” section can engage users in a more powerful way
Low Fidelity Wireframe Solutions (right)
- Re-labeling the sub-headings to match up with navigation bar pages ︎︎︎ users can quickly understand and select a page that is most relevant to them
- “Meet the Bountiful Community” section can build user’s trust by showing who uses Bountiful and encourage network-building
Where we landed the plane
One of our teammates that was tasked with defining the product as well as further clarifying the pillar of “collaboration” concluded that a forum-like feature would be the best way for our users to interact with researchers, companies or universities on the Bountiful platform. This feature would serve as a solution to our HMW statements above: to support researchers in their commercialization endeavors as well as increase the number of patents being licensed to industry through the increased connections made in the collaboration tool.
PHASE 2
Moving forward, we recalibrated our efforts to focus on the collaboration tool as a priority. The goal here was to increase user engagement on the Bountiful platform as a means to create a thriving, global community.
My teammate and I dove into market research and conducted a thorough analysis of other established forums. There was no need to reinvent the wheel here, but we wanted to make sure that the collaboration tool would meet both the business and users’ needs.
Moving forward, we recalibrated our efforts to focus on the collaboration tool as a priority. The goal here was to increase user engagement on the Bountiful platform as a means to create a thriving, global community.
My teammate and I dove into market research and conducted a thorough analysis of other established forums. There was no need to reinvent the wheel here, but we wanted to make sure that the collaboration tool would meet both the business and users’ needs.
From our empathy map insights in Phase I, we remembered that users miss the opportunity to network with people face to face and thought that Bountiful would be beneficial in helping them find other scientific researchers who could collaborate with them on shared interests in their niche fields.
As such, we wanted to prioritize features in the forum that would increase engagement for users on the platform (business goal) and interactions between users (user need).
The market research helped us see what was most successful on other forums and ideate possible combinations of features.
As such, we wanted to prioritize features in the forum that would increase engagement for users on the platform (business goal) and interactions between users (user need).
The market research helped us see what was most successful on other forums and ideate possible combinations of features.
We modeled many of the features after Indie Hackers, Quora, Facebook and Twitter like the ability to upvote, leave comments on posts, follow certain topics or people, and filter all content by Bountiful’s page categories. It was important that we also use design patterns that users are already familiar with for ease of use while maintaining the brand identity of Bountiful’s platform.
The pages above (top left to right, clockwise) are as follows: Problem statement, notifications, and profile. From the business standpoint, it was important that we create unified details across the platform for users to have a frictionless experience between the collaboration tool and the other pages.
Pivot...pivot...!
After presenting our solution, we met with Bountiful’s developer to discuss the next steps in implementing the collaboration tool and all its features. This meeting was insightful as there were many micro interactions that we had not thought about or finalized as a team.
Ultimately, the business pivoted to using a third-party platform to house the collaboration tool page as proved metrics for its success were needed before investing into its development and execution on the Bountiful platform.
Testing to validate
The third-party community platform saved the business time and money as its use would help us see if there was truly a need for the collaboration forum. We had performed usability testing on this platform with several existing and new users, which yielded mixed results.
My teammate and I created an affinity map using the rose, thorn, bud method: roses represent things that work well, thorns are things that don’t work well, and buds are areas of opportunities.
Insights:
-
Users want smaller communities within the platform to both contribute and learn from others.
-
Users want more customized feeds according to their interests.
- Users become frustrated when information architecture is not straightforward.
In the end
The separation of the Bountiful platform and its collaboration tool were confusing to existing and new users. Several users commented that, prototype aside, they would want to see a large and growing community before they decided to engage with it.
Although the results were not what we had hoped for, the entire journey had been an eye-opening experience. Our wonderful partnership had ended here, but we were glad to know that our designs and solutions were being used to communicate Bountiful’s vision to potential investors.
A major takeaway from this experience was that design is never straightforward. When someone pivots, you adjust, but designing from data with the business’ goals and users’ needs as a north star helps to guide you in the unpredictable nature of startups.
Although the results were not what we had hoped for, the entire journey had been an eye-opening experience. Our wonderful partnership had ended here, but we were glad to know that our designs and solutions were being used to communicate Bountiful’s vision to potential investors.
A major takeaway from this experience was that design is never straightforward. When someone pivots, you adjust, but designing from data with the business’ goals and users’ needs as a north star helps to guide you in the unpredictable nature of startups.
