Tribal-iii Portfolio
Tribal is an indie nonprofit committed to continued learning through purposeful production.
They help artists of all types, from animators to storyboard artists, to designers like myself.
Tribal-iii’s Portfolio Site is designed to give these artists a space to upload their work and share with directors, hiring managers, and recruiters.
Tribal-iii Portfolio
The Problem:
Tribal artists needed a space to upload their work, so they could share it with directors, hiring managers and recruiters.
My role:
Lead UX Designer
Tribal is an indie nonprofit committed to continued learning through purposeful production.
They help artists of all types, from animators to storyboard artists, to designers like myself.
Tribal-iii’s Portfolio Site is designed to give these artists a space to upload their work and share with directors, hiring managers, and recruiters.
Scope:
2 months
The Goal:
I wanted to create a beautiful, simple, intuitive, and easy-to-use portfolio site where artists could find a home for their work.
Tools used:
Figma
Trello
Google Meet
Google Spaces
User Stories
Usually, I would first figure out who my user is.
This time, I was designing for the product owner, who wanted a portfolio to showcase her animation and storyboarding artwork.
So, together, we came up with some user stories to better understand the user’s needs, and what would comprise the portfolio site.
“As a visual artist, I want a share button so that I can gain more work opportunities and followers.”
Initial Inspiration
I love doing research to get to understand my users.
As I was asked to create an MVP first, and then go back and edit that MVP based on research, I waited to conduct surveys or user interviews.
However, it was essential to do some basic competitive analysis to get inspired and have an idea of what other portfolio websites were doing.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Easy to use and intuitive
The user builds their portfolio with a template, which makes it really easy to use
Has everything an artist or recruiter/director would need, all easily found on the home page.
Great informational architecture. No cognitive overload. They avoid this, by nesting options. If a user clicks on “discover” there are then filters to refine what the user wants to find.
Clean, simple aesthetic.
I believe that it syncs to other Adobe products.
Because users use a template to design their portfolio, this site is a little restrictive.
A bit busy, cluttered. Could be made a little more “breathable.”
Could have some more filters when searching/ discovering. For example, under “UX/UI” there are still many artists, so it would be nice if there was a way to filter a user’s search a bit more.
The menu options are unclear. In the menu, there is both “photography” and “examples.” But this makes me think: “are there not examples of photography under that menu header? If not, what would I find under this header? And what about “examples?” If there are not examples of photography, then of what?
Cool Features:
Resources and Pricing plans, which is helpful to know
Templates
Ability to search and find other artists.
A platform that is specifically designed for “specialty” artists, like animators, storyboard artists, or other artists that would need to do more than upload images and text.
Opportunities:
A platform with more flexibility to reshape images, add overlays, change fonts and colors, etc.
A platform with more flexibility to reshape images, add overlays, change fonts and colors, etc.
Initial Wireframes
Using our competitor’s strengths for inspiration, and avoiding their pitfalls, I created some low-fidelity wireframes.
High-Fidelity and Prototype
With some wireframes created, the product owner wanted me to add color to the design.
She liked the design of Netflix’s Hero section and wanted something similar. I used it for inspiration.
I then created a prototype for the login.
Challenges:
The project hit a snag when it came to development. Working with volunteers, it was difficult for newbie developers to find the time to implement the designs.
This process took so long, I was assigned to a new project.
Retrospective
Solutions:
Although we had design sprints, implementing a more agile design process would have sped up the process.