Roles and Tools
Team: Olena Khomchenko (UX Designer), Johnathon Smith (Chief Technology Officer at Appech Inc)
My Role: As Junior UX Designer, I create low-fidelity wireframes, and participate in stakeholder interviews and design review sessions.
Tools: Microsoft Teams, Lucidchart
Online Business
The rise of YouTubers, bloggers, and Instagram stars brings new ways for brands to reach their target customers through already engaged and established audiences.
Platform “Influencer” helps businesses reach a new level of orders, gain new customers, and secure new contracts that benefit both businesses and influencers.
Research - driven Process
Client’s Goals
The client contacted us with the idea of creating a platform that hosts Influencer and business accounts, analyzes data from social networks, selects clients from the necessary categories, and helps establish long-term business relationships that benefit both parties.
For now, only the”Influencer” platform and marketing page has been created. The business platform is currently under discussion.
Who Is an Influencer?
An Influencer is a person who can attract more customers to a business by influencing an audience. It is essential for them to have a large number of subscribers on various social media platforms. An Influencer wants to be sure that the brand they are promoting is reliable and provides quality products. It is very important that an Influencer knows who they are working with, as subscribers and fans trust them. If the fans don’t like the product or described service, an Influencer may lose their audience’s trust or the audience itself. To find responsible business owners, an Influencer need a platform that will provide them with proven top companies that are interested in long-term, high-quality cooperations.
What Is an Influencer?
The platform “Influencer” will provide analytics for a selected time period, allowing users to control their accounts and income without the need for third-party applications.
Main platform functions include:
1. Creating a profile
2. Searching and gaining new contracts
3. Checking the status of existing contracts
4. Reporting (earnings, statistics)
Registration
Platform registration is very easy. Go to the registration form directly from the site, confirm the mail, enter the necessary information, and get a ready-made account!
To avoid creating fake accounts, you must confirm your mail.
After confirmation, you need to enter some personal information (e.g., your name, surname, mail, year of birth, and address) and billing information. As soon as the account is created, Influencer can start looking for clients and conclude contracts. After creating an account, the user can enter all other information at any time.
A personal profile can tell everything about the owner. And more.
When the user enters their personal account page, they clearly understand what information they need to add, what they can get, and what needs to be done for this.
Ratings
Ratings are one of the most important components of an Influencer’s work. The higher the rating and the better the reviews, the more likely other businesses will turn to you. As well, honest reviews will help you better understand your strengths and weaknesses, and learn what clients were satisfied with, and what needs to be worked on.
Reviews
When a client with whom an Influencer has worked leaves a review, it is very important that this review is informative both for the Influencer and for their future clients.
Tags & Categories
Different people are interested in different things: some may be interested in traveling, while others are passionate about video games.
The platform hosts a large number of businesses from different areas, and in order for the Influencer to receive contracts in their area of interest, we’ve introduced tags and categories. In addition, tags will help businesses narrow the list of Influencers and identify those who are the pros in their particular field.
Social Media
Social media and video hosting platforms are the main tools for Influencers: the more, the better. On our platform, an Influencer can add five social networks and track their statistics
Transaction History
Our platform is designed to ensure that the Influencer receives more orders, and the more orders, the more money. The transaction history allows you to control the amount of funds spent on our platform and helps you understand how much was earned.
Notification
Today’s pace of life makes you stay in touch 24/7 and it is important to keep abreast of the latest events. At the same time, though, achieving a work-life balance is key. In order to maintain this balance, it’s necessary to limit the flow of messages and notifications. Therefore, we’ve developed a system that allows you to customize and prioritize alerts. By default, the user will receive all notifications both by mail and phone, and notifications will also be reflected in the top panel while the user is online.
Search Offers, Bids, and Contracts
To find a list of customers, an Influencer only needs to enter one word. For example, if our user is fond of travel, then to search for hotels, they can simply enter the word “Hotels.” Then, a list of clients will appear who have the word “Hotel” in their description.
You can then assess whether or not a customer is suitable, and look at the brand card, which reflects the following information: name, location, offer summary, tags, feedback from other influencers, offer creation date, price.
This information will help the Influencer decide if they are interested in this offer and want more information. For more detailed information, the user must click on the card. The search also works for bids and contracts; simply select the desired category
Available Offers
You can search for available offers through both the search and the Offers tab. This tab contains all available offers in the category selected by the user. You can also narrow your search by setting up additional filters (e.g., ZIP code and distance).
Again, to view the full version of the offer, simply click on the card. In the full version, you can find additional information such as: a complete description of the requirements, price, and whether it is required to receive the goods or not.
If a brand offers a product or item for review, then the Influencer can find the description of the product by simply clicking on the product itself.
If an Influencer decides to send a request for a deal to a potential client, then they must provide information about what they can offer and for what amount. If the client and Influencer accept the agreed upon terms, then the offer goes into the category “Contracts.” If we have a situation where the brand did not want to work with an Influencer, then this offer is rejected and it no longer appears in the Influencer’s search.
To avoid a situation where the Influencer can send a request for the same offer twice, the offer card will indicate that the request has been sent.
Bids
The Bids tab shows the entire history of the Influencer: when they sent a bid, and which requests were approved or blocked. The Influencer can also view the submitted bid details, or, in the case where the Influencer has changed their mind, simply cancel the request. On any bid status (except for blocked), the Influencer and client can communicate via chat.
Contracts
As previously mentioned, approved offers are converted into contracts. Influencers can view all of their contracts in the Contracts tab. All contract details are signed in DocuSign and can be downloaded in .pdf format. You can download the contract from both the general page and separately in each document.
Since contracts can have different statuses, we’ve allowed them to be divided into several categories so the user can filter them accordingly. The four categories are:
“Non-Active”: The contract has been completed and closed by agreement of the two parties. All payments have been completed.
“Active”: All open contracts that the Influencer is currently working on.
“Pending”: The contract is either awaiting the signing of a document by one of the parties, or a deposit is expected from the client.
“Completed/Closed”: This category contains contracts that the influencer has closed at will, and the Influencer is waiting for an action from the client
On the Contracts tab, the user is provided with the following information: contract name, contract status, messages, contract information, product information (if any), including delivery information, the contract itself.
For contracts without products, the process is simple: fulfill the conditions on time, click the “Finish” button, receive the money and a good review.
Contracts with products have the additional option of “Shipping Information.” Shipping Information provides the ability to track the goods that the client has sent and confirm receipt of the goods. This additional step was inserted so that the user does not have to search for packages on different sites and navigate numerous links. The Influencer has the ability to track packages all in one place.
Invites
Recommendations and word of mouth remain the best strategies for developing any product. It is very important for our platform to grow, so we provide users with the ability to invite other users (other Influencers and brands) to our platform. Once the invited person creates an account on our platform, you receive an invitation for a month of free use of the platform. In order to invite someone to the platform, users must fill out a short form, indicating their full name, email, message.
