RoleModel case study
As my graduation project, I decided to create an application that tends to connect models and photographers to be able to work together in a safe and comfortable manner.
Client
Student project
Execution time
2 weeks
Deliverables
Research
UX
UI
Prototype
Tools
Sketch
InVision Studio
Context
Some of my friends are photographers, they often show me thier work. One of my friend showed me a website where he usually requite models for his projects.
Even though the website has a quite good number of users who seems to be active, the website just not up to date. After a quick research It turned out that the competitors are on the same level in quality.
More over if a photographer would like to find a suitable model, there is a lot of places to look for, which is time consuming and not guaranteed that the model going to found. Same goes for models as well.
They could be on Instagram, Facebook groups, different websites and applications.
That’s where I saw an opportunity since models and photographers need each other to keep going on, but there was not a “Go to” up to date platform available.
competitor website 1 – Model Mayhem
competitor website 2 – Purple Port
Research Methods
- Survey
- Interviews
- Competitive Analyses
Main findings
78%
Of photographers had problems finding a suitable model.
86%
Would use one platform instead of multiple divided places to look for models.
96%
Of photographers has been “ghosted” by models at some point in their carrier.
COMPETITOR DEFICIENCY
Competitors are not user friendly enough, not up to date design solutions
Too easy access for anyone this way anyone can register without any problem
There is no safe payment system or a good solution for contracts
MODEL FRUSTRATIONS
Not regulated contracts, this way they can get scammed after the shoot
Shady intentions by photographers which can lead to unwanted experiences
Payment issues since it is not regulated on the market
PHOTOGRAPHER FRUSTRATIONS
Models often disappear and not answer anymore before a shoot
Hard to negotiate a realistic price with beginner models
Hard and time consuming to find suitable models for projects
User Persona
Brian’s main goals are focused on improving and be able to do full time what he is the most passionate about.
Eventough is’s hard to find time to his passion, he is still being motivated and looking for opportunities consistently
Brian Luis
General:
- Netherlands, Amsterdam
- 29 years old
- Photo editor in a multi company
Goals:
- A way to negotiate easier with models
- Have reliable models
- Find portait models in a easy manner
Problem statement:
Brian would like to find reliable models to be able to improve his photography skills, becauselater on he would like to become a a full time professional photographer.
Concept of the application
At this point, I had my users, their goals, motivations, and pain points. The next step was to create a solution for their problems. I used brainstorming as my main tool for this phase, although I’ve got a lot of inspiration from my earlier competitor analysis as well.
Eventually, I’ve used the MOSCOW method to priorities which ideas I’m going to focus on.
User flow:
- Home screen
- Search Page
- Find a model
- Review her profile
- Send a message
- Negotiate a price
- After the shoot has happened, approve it in the app
Highlited features:
- Deposit system
After any fixed appointment the parties have to pay a deposit, which can be lost if some of the parties does not appear on the occasion.
- Offer package system
An easy way to negotiate within the messaging section in the application.
- Payment system
When registering, users have to insert their bank accounts as well, this way all related payment can stay within the application, this way we avoid being scammed.
- Verified and reviewed users
Safety was a big issue, so with reviews and verifications we could have more trust within the community.
Visuals
With my mood Board, I wanted to reach a clean, elegant and simple look. As typography, I used Playfair Display as my headings and Avenir as my body text. When I was deciding colors, I’ve got inspired by royals from the 17th century.
In order to give life to the design, I’ve built my own design system with the necessary elements, such as Icons, form fields, and checkboxes. This step speeds up the UI process greatly and helped to keep consistent across pages while designing. Just as I mentioned earlier, my key goal was to keep it simple, yet elegant and it had to be mirrored in the design system as well.
Key learnings and challenges
Since I planned to create a platform where people can connect, I had to find solutions to facilitate their way of connecting. At the first the biggest challenge was to implement a negotiating system, quite frankly, I didn’t know how it’s gonna look like. But eventually, it made sense to place it into the messaging part.
Since this app would be used mostly by people who are sensitive to good visuals, I really wanted to achieve that clean and elegant look to satisfy my users not just functionally, but visually as well.
Later on, I would definitely make a dedicated button for the “offer package system” if the user just wants to send an offer to someone without any conversations. I’ve also gathered a lot more features than I could implement here due to time constraints.
