A Preview into Our Solution

Understanding UX was Here’s Mission

UX was Here began as an anonymous act of UX design, observing the chaos of a crowded company cafeteria serving approximately 1,500 employees daily. As employees scrambled, frustrated, in selecting their meals and making payments, the founder Matt recognized an opportunity to reduce inefficiency and optimize the lines.

After a successful guerrilla experiment, rearranging and optimizing queues, he left behind a stick note that proclaimed, UX was here! As a result, Matt found his solution carried an impact beyond simply improving a lunch line but a demonstration of how “one person’s determination and love for helping others could create a chain reaction of positive change.”

With this sentiment, the UX was Here platform was created with the sharing of resources, expertise, and insights at its core, irrespective of the level of experience or professional backgrounds of the site's users.

Investigating UX was Here’s High Turnover Rate

In the initial brief, users were noted to quickly drop off after creating their accounts, so as a team we wanted to explore further. Is UX was Here speaking to the right target market? What motivations are driving users to engage with existing communal platforms? What is UX was Here offering that other communities aren’t and how can we differentiate it?

Existing Online Communities and Why do they Work?

As UX was Here caters to a broad spectrum of individuals ranging from students and recent graduates to seasoned professionals, it's essential for us to understand the needs and motivations of its diverse user base.

To begin, our team took a look at competing UX platforms in Design Buddies, IterateUX, and ADPList and various indirect competitors such as Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Reddit to see where users are positioned and a market discrepancy where UX was Here could potentially fit in.

UX Designers on Online Communities and UX was Here at a Glance

To gain perspective from a diverse UX demographic, we conducted 6 remote interviews with UX designers ranging from students to professionals on their experience and behaviours in online design communities (or design-adjacent communities). After, we had the designers complete a think-aloud walkthrough of the existing UX was Here website. With this, we organized our qualitative findings into affinity maps.

Interaction Patterns and Opinions on Online Communities (left), First Impressions of UX was Here (right)

Our Insights in Relation to UX was Here’s Brand Value Pillars

With insights from our competitive analysis and user interviews, we synthesized UX was Here’s brand value pillars and existing value propositions to surface the sectors that our team could focus on.

After looking at how the platform approaches professional networking and growth through features such as events and its job board, we see more long-term potential over time in intervening in enabling open conversation and participation. As our interviews revealed, the primary appeal of most online communities is the active user base and the quality of authentic interactions and conversations that occur as a result.

The Guiding Question

Our Solution

Reducing Barriers with an Option to Post Anonymously

Posting under a professional identity can be daunting for a multitude of reasons including online permanence, imposter syndrome, fear of criticism, or lack of confidence. Typically, people desire to show only the best versions of themselves, causing hurdles in getting accustomed to online communities where the voices of its users are essential. By allowing UX was Here’s demographic the option to post pseudonymously, our solution reduces some of the barriers associated with posting under a professional identity.

Inspired by the origin of UX was Here, we saw an opportunity to copywrite pseudonymous posting as a branded interaction in the form of “... was here”. Using this space as a means of providing context behind a purely anonymous profile allows for a degree of camaraderie and accountability in its interactions.

Segmenting Discussions through Sub-communities

As UX was Here currently stands in its beta, the existing explore section acts as one large discussion rather than multiple conversations happening simultaneously. Having everything posted to the same space, especially for a platform with such a wide expected demographic in designers of all skill levels and disciplines make it difficult for specialized content to be found.

Current UX was Here site

With this, we created sub-communities where users are able to participate and connect with others through more focused topics of conversation and interests. Communities allow for opportunities for specialized community engagement such as design jams and challenges, organized discussions, and targeted feedback and support.

Encouraging Activity Through Passive Engagement

As surfaced in our user interviews, a common trait we noticed amongst some of our participants is the desire to join an online community with a visibly active user base. In addition, some interviewees expressed a disinterest in actively engaging with their communities due to time or simply being content as a passive user.

With this, we sought to increase opportunities for passive engagement on the platform. One avenue we’ve redesigned is the home page, moving from a single-column to a multi-column layout. Doing so not only enhances the perception of activity on the page visually but also increases the number of posts available for engagement at once. In addition to liking posts, we’ve added features such as reposting and polls for users to engage with without the need to textually contribute to a conversation.

We’ve redefined UX was Here's existing resources and saved sections as “collections” to help foster a community-driven compilation of resources. Here, users can collaborate with others or curate a personal list of content to share or reference privately. Currently, resources are a series of hyperlinks leading to articles on external sites and do not appear on the home feed. With this, we've turned resources into regular posts, allowing for better visibility on the home page and reducing clutter.

Introducing Carriers that Care

Business Problem

Founded in 1867, Canada Post is a crown corporation functioning as Canada’s primary postal delivery service. The company’s 2022 annual report notes a steady decline in revenue for the past 17 years, losing market share to faster and cheaper competitors such as FedEx and UPS. With this, Canada Post seeks to expand their market offerings beyond traditional letter delivery services.

Framing our Problem Space

With countries such as Japan and France already implementing successful extensions to their postal services to aid the social isolation of seniors, our primary goal was to navigate the service in the Canadian socio-cultural landscape. In addition, we aimed to leverage Canada Post's existing infrastructure of door-to-door delivery, status as a crown corporation, and reputation of being one of the most trusted professions amongst Canadians (Léger, 2021).

Arriving at our Framing

Emphasizing Trust and Credibility with Canadians

My team and I underwent a 3-day design sprint to gain a better shared understanding of our problem space, Canada Post as a company, and the ideal journeys of our various stakeholders: the postal worker, Canadian families and their elderly registered for our program.

After performing exercises such as exploring our users' ideal golden paths, how might we creations, analyzing competitors, an insight we uncovered was the importance of building and maintaining trust with Canadians. We realize that this was a cultural nuance we needed to be more mindful of as opposed to successful precedents Japan Post and France's La Poste.

Focusing on Senior Social Isolation

Later, through a series of seven 30-40 minute user tests with participants ranging from 20 to 50 years-old, living independently from their parents, our sprint assumptions were further justified with trust being a significant barrier to adopting Carriers that Care as a service. Recurring points of concern included "feeling impersonal," security, and medical qualifications postal workers would have.

Our primary takeaway indicated that emphasizing the tangible value of reporting observations and offering preventative health services led to a decrease in customer trust. This was attributed by users perceiving Carriers that Care as a direct alternative to services such as caretakers or palliative care without proper licensing and training.

With this, paired with the Canadian National Institute of Aging's 4 Essential Pillars for Supporting Aging the Right Place (2022), we have decided to shift our focus to improving social connections to alleviate loneliness and social isolation. We found this particular pillar to be the most feasible for Canada Post's postal workers in terms of training and credibility.

Phase 1: Homepage & Onboarding

Canadian Seniors and Canadian Families

Phase 2: Recurring Check-ins

Canada Post Mail Carriers

Phase 3: Post-Visit Updates

Canadian Seniors and Canadian Families

Addressing User Concerns

Consent and Privacy

As opposed to successful precedents in Japan and France, Canada differs culturally in the potential invasiveness of the service as a primary concern. To mitigate this, we've implemented measures on the site, including callouts, physical information packages, and a follow-up call after signup. These steps ensure that families inform their loved ones about the service and obtain their consent before signing up.

When registering for Carriers that Care, an informational brochure will be sent to the recipient of the service while waiting for verbal consent. Once consent has been authorized, only then will Canada Post carriers begin visitations.

Developing a Sub-brand of Canada Post

Carriers that Care Before and After

When developing the visual identity of Carriers that Care, we understand the value Canada Post has as a crown corporation and recognizable, trusted brand for Canadians. However, our initial user testing revealed concerns and confusion between Canada Post's close ties with letter and parcel delivery services and introducing Carriers that Care as an extension of their current services. With this, we differentiated Carriers that Care's visual identity as a sub-brand, while keeping the essence of Canada Post through colour.

Carriers that Care's New Design System

Discovery

Canada Post Postage Stickers

We anticipate customers discovering this service primarily through news, word of mouth, or online advertisements. Yet, leveraging stickers on Canada Post packages offers a chance to inform existing customers about the service while maintaining alignment with the brand's assets.