TouchBase
HR Hiring Management and Communities
This case is more UI than UX. The client reached out to me without a visual ID completely set, with some pre-demands. So we ran a lot of testing of colors, grids, positions and elements. The client already had the features he needed mapped.
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So here is a little bit of my creative process when building an UI:
When we first discussed the platform, the idea was that it would be pink as a main color. However, after a while working on the pink wireframes, the product manager wanted to try something new and less exhausting to look at. So we discussed colors, such as colors he didn't want at all and colors he might like.
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I presented two options: orange and purple. I though of orange because it is sort of a neutral color and it's used in B2B platforms like Hubspot. It could be used in different shades and not look so "feminine" like the pink color could (for some people). And purple was my second choice because many modern platform use purple, it is trending and also represents innovation.
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Based on what he liked the most, he ended up choosing the purple option after showing him these models:
Color Decision
The next decision he needed to make was to choose the menu appearance, in order to create the grids to base the components on. As the platform would be divided in two (one for recruters management and other for communities), two different menus were chosen to each part. Below, the first one:
Communities
The first challenge was to define how the two platforms would relate to each other and what needs did our leads have that must be contemplated in the MVP:
Then, it was time to gather some references from similar products and features. Some of my references were from Facebook, LinkedIn, Pallet and others.
Next, we were discussing colors. Would it be the same purple? After some tests, we decided to slightly go back to pink, but this time in a different shade: a shade next to Magenta. Mostly for the components. In the rest, the bet was in a gradient from magenta do purple:
We even played with the gradient in some bold ways to see the mos interesting option (but we ended up staying with the low key choices to keep it simple and accessible)
After building the empty stages, settings pages and messages area, finally it was time to build the administration and inbox area. It looks similar to both enterprise and community manager. The goal is to show some relevant data and to show new notifications.
Conclusion: At this company, I wasn't working in a team. I was hired as a freelancer and worked with the owner alone. Because of that, I didn't have a say in business's decisions or even in some user experience ones. I was strictly there to help out on some UI decisions like components display, layout models and brand colors.
I learned a lot about a designer-client relationship and also the impact stakeholders have at an interface design. It helped me to cope with decisions out of my reach and also have fun along the way on testing my creative abilities.