01. OVERVIEW

CreaFund is an investing app specifically for users that want to invest in their favorite creators, with the intent to fund and grow their business. The app is geared toward people who want to start investing in the creator economy and be part of the Web 3.0 movement. I designed the app as a personal project, from conception to delivery. I took on this project because I am both a creator, who creates and produces content for my social media community. and a user who would like to invest in my favorite YouTubers.

02. OUTCOME

03. DESIGN PROCESS

04. RESEARCH

Context

Some creators have leveraged their audiences to build billion-dollar businesses and media empires. The creators most valuable asset is their relationship with their audience.

To better understand how successful creators are transforming audiences into empires, I created a framework that represents the process.

I divided the creator lifecycle into four steps: attention, trust, commerce, and ownership. Each step has its own goals, ways to monetize, metrics and tools.

Interviews

I started by conducting interviews with creators and people who wanted to invest in them. My goal was to get a better understanding of their behaviors, needs, and motivations.

I needed to understand the user’s needs to build the foundation for the design. I was able to identify three major key findings.

Persona

Once I identified the participants’ pain points, I incorporated the insights from the interviews into a user persona. This helped me to identify patterns of behaviors in my target audience, which led me to highlight common pain points.

Journey Map

By using all of the research collected, I created a journey map for my user persona to understand how the user might interact with the app, and to create a more intuitive user experience.

Competitive Analysis

Although there is only a select amount of popular creator investing apps on the market, the competitive analysis offers valuable insight into features that existing competitors have integrated, what they are currently offering that users enjoy, and pain points users identify.

I completed the competitive analysis with the most popular creator investing apps offered in the app store. I identified what is currently done well, what users identify as useful, and what gaps I could potentially fill with the design of CreaFund.

05. IDEATION

Next, I started sketching by using the Crazy Eights method. The goal here was to be completely open-minded and to come up with numerous ideas.

06. USER FLOW

Based on the research, user flows of the main functions of an app were drawn. The user flow was used to help me determine what functions and pages I would need to be designing for.

07. WIREFRAMES

Paper Wireframes

After ideating, I started drafting some paper wireframes. I began the wireframe process through hand-drawn sketches with rough layout ideas to ensure I was clear on the vision I had for the design.

I designed four wireframes for each screen of the app. Then I selected the features I wanted to use in my refined wireframe. I repeated the same process for all the pages of the app.

I did the same process for the dashboard of the desktop version.

Digital Wireframes

Next, I began creating the initial designs on Figma. I started designing digital wireframes for each page, focusing on UI requirements, hierarchy, and layout.

I also created the digital wireframe of the dashboard for the desktop version.

08. USABILITY STUDY

After I created a clickable prototype in Figma, I conducted a usability study with the potential target users to reveal possible usability problems and improve the functionality.

For the usability study, I prepared a usability testing plan (including the test objectives, methodology, participant summary, tasks, and script). From the usability study, I was able to note the following key findings.

09. ITERATION

I focused on what users noted as pain points and thought of potential updates I could make to the design. I finally added three new features:

• NFT filter buttons

• Token amount feature

• Creator section

10. MOCKUPS

Below showcases the UI designs I created for CreaFund based on the research and information collected, while adhering to visual design principles and Gestalt Principles.

I also finished designing the mockup of the dashboard of the desktop version.

11. LIGHT MODE

I designed the light version of the app as part of one of my accessibility considerations. I finalized the most important pages of the app for mobile, and the dashboard for desktop.

12. DESIGN SYSTEM

I created the design system to act as a guide, including iconography, colors, typography, and imagery. I continually referred back to this design system while completing the responsive designs to ensure the design was cohesive and consistent.

13. FINAL PRODUCT

After many tests and iterations, my final product aligned with all of the objectives I had set in place. It includes the three core features necessary for users to invest in creators while appearing visually appealing and simple to use.

Invest

Invest in your favorite creators by buying their tokens.

Shared revenue

Withdraw your shared revenue from your investments.

NFT marketplace

Collect NFTs from creators and get access to their perks.

14. NEXT STEPS

My next goal is to keep working on the desktop version of the app. I already designed the dashboard, but I would like to go further.

15. WHAT I LEARNED

Don’t be afraid to ask

From noticing mistakes in my UI, to uncovering more foundational UX problems in my app, I’m thankful to have constantly asked for feedback from my peers. In the end, I pushed to have the app at its best, and did not let my own thinking stop me from questioning if my own decisions were truly best for the user.

Never assume

Finding a relatively, "new" way to integrate the creator economy into an app presented both a challenge and an exciting concept. I had concerns that users would be apprehensive about the feature given that it is a different concept, but it was well-received, and users mentioned they would like to see this actually implemented!