DesignGost Platform
A cross-platform mentoring product for creatives and designers.
Company
DesignGost is a mentoring platform for Turkish-speaking creatives (for the global market later on) that aims to help young people shaping their future. We have created a platform dedicated to creative professionals and designers who would like to meet each other and get advise from the Creative Directors, Art Directors, Managers, and Senior Creatives.
DesignGost offers mentor-led, online design education with a focus on creativity, design, and experience. Rock Star Mentors, unique design video content, chats, direct messages, video calls, and much more. By combining the power of the internet with the magic of 1-on-1 mentoring, we’re creating a new educational experience that is completely free.
Problem
The young population is the most dynamic and sensitive group in Turkey. The number of youth in the 12-24 age group constitutes 31 percent of the population in Turkey, which has a rather young population. The expectations for the future of Turkey’s young, urban, and well-educated creative population of about 80 million people has been increasing gradually.
Thousands of thousands young individuals are getting graduated from the art schools every year. They dream spreading their art all over the world but most of them don’t even have a career or meet their hero who can help them to create a career path.
Solution
We needed a clear message to invite young designers to get in touch with the well-seasoned and experienced creative professionals via email messages, feedback tool and chat module. We wanted to give a solid experience and a cross-platform product to young designers and creatives.
Timeline
4 months
Roles
User Research, User Interviews, Wireframes, Product Design, Visual Design, and Web Design
Tools
Figma, AE, Balsamiq, Jira, Trello, Guerilla Testing
Visit Website
Process
Discover
– User research
– User interviews
– Design research
Define
– User Flows
– Site Mapping
– Features
Design
– Low-fi wireframes
– Visual mockups
– Interactive prototypes
Develop & Ship
– Developer hi-fi prototypes
– Developer hand-off
Discover
User Research
Crafting UX design without user research was basically like making decisions based on industry standards that weren’t directly focused on our users. User research was an important stage for our product to put a strong emphasis on our users’ experience and expectations.
We focused on understanding our potential users’ expectations, behaviors, needs, and motivations through methodical, investigative approaches. Insights are then used to ensure that all product design decisions do benefit the user.
User Interviews
We used to use Google Forms for the user survey and *our temporary Discord designer community for one-on-one video interviews.
*We got 4800+ users on our temporary Discord community in two months after we’ve released our marketing website.
I wish I could show my designs to senior creatives to get comprehensive feedback.
I want to explore and try different design disciplines with a design coach.
As a design student, I am aware of that every Jedi needs a Yoda
User Flows
Map out the steps first
As we went forward with our research, we realized that the commuters needed more simplicity. Once we had a clear understanding of what features and pages needed to be designed, I moved onto the information architecture of the Platform. I created the user flows to help envision the tactical user journey for key actions for the web and mobile apps as a foundation.
Features
Sketch
Paper and Pen, My Speed Boosters
I usually start the design process with low fidelity sketches by designing many options and then taking one of the ideas, and sketching/mapping out the entire experience. As soon as we felt the user flows were okay for us, I could finally sketch some ideas. I wanted to keep something clear, simple and that could be improved in future iterations.
Wireframes
We asked our potantial users to have some insights on the average of number of upgrades per person. I also worked in collaboration with the developers to know the possibilities when calling our backend. I designed a quick prototype with low-fi screens first.
Below are the wireframes — made in Figma — that showcase some of our core features and screens.
Product Management
As a Co-founder and Product Designer, I was responsible for improving overall processes of product design, development and management by improving quality and efficiency. I am a believer in Agile Management methodology and I like to define and establish processes around that.
Trello is a horizontal and open ended task planning and management tool that we used to collaborate during different stages of product development.
Design System
Design Principles
Iterative
I believe that practice makes perfect, and achieving perfection requires trying, and then trying again and again until you get there.
Modular
I’ve chosen to create things out of independent parts with standard interfaces. This allows our designs to be customized, upgraded, repaired and for parts to be reused.
Universal
I know that accessible design is good design. Everything I built should’ve been as inclusive, legible and readable as possible for both mentors and mentees.
Hi-Fi Prototypes
Feedback Tool
We wanted to create a feedback tool that enables designers to collaborate effortlessly with mentors no matter where they are in the world. It’s a fast feedback tool for visuals and messages come with an interactive interface that makes it a joy for designers.
You can get visual feedback right in your browser by using point-and-click annotation tool or messages. It is quite effective to collaborate on new ideas, get feedback, and share the vision of your ideas or design.
Chat
Share with the right people, in the right place.
Having multiple conversations in a single chat is a hassle when you are trying to share different types of information, knowledge, and inspirations. We’ve created topic-based chat rooms to showcasing your work, getting inspired, and constructive feedback from other designers under related topics.
Designers can meet other designers and mentors, ask questions, send direct messages, talk about the latest design news, ask for critiques of your work and much more.
Video Content
DesignGost
iPhone App
DesignGost Marketing Website
The goal was to create a modern, 3D, and a dynamic design style that would allow us to elevate the DesignGost brand, and deliver the messages in a more user friendly environment.
Video for the Website Launch
Video marketing is indeed one of the most engaging and exciting ways to convey your message to the right audience. People love to share entertaining and engaging videos. So, to inform our users about the features of our product, and how it can help them to solve their pain point, it was important to create a video about DesignGost platform.
We spent 4 days on New York streets to find the best spots and make a well-produced video.
My Role:
Director, Video Editor, Color Grading
Logo Animation
