UX/UI DESIGN • PRODUCT MANAGEMENT • USER RESEARCH

Designing a product MVP for Suune – a marketplace for visual artists

Suune is on a mission to connect businesses with visual and fine artists – streamlining the process of finding work, invoicing clients, and getting paid

A screenshot of the project page for the Suune web app

Summary

Suune is an early-stage startup aiming to create a better working relationship between artists and businesses. Our product is a one-stop-shop for artists looking for new projects, and businesses that need unique art.

My role on the project focused on completing user research and defining user needs, ideating and wireframing user flows, and designing and testing new interfaces for landing pages, onboarding, core products, and new features.

Project Length: 6 months

Skills + Tools

• 0 → 1 product strategy
• UX/UI design
• Product management
• User research
• Wireframing
• Developer handoff
• Figma | FigJam

Team

• Founder
• 3 UX Designers (including myself)
• 3 Front-end Developers

Problem

Visual and fine artists do not have an easy way to find commissioned projects and manage payments when working with businesses.

Solution

Create a platform for artists to manage their projects, find new work, and invoice clients.

CHALLENGES ALONG THE WAY

Challenge: Although the product concept was clear, we struggled to align the founder’s expectations with our designs. The founder (a designer themself) often made design changes without noting updates or explaining reasoning.

Solution: I asked for additional information and context when these situations arose. If we agreed on the necessary changes, they would be included in design iterations.

Struggling to gain alignment

Challenge: For the first two months, we didn’t have any set deadlines for design. This slowed our progress and left many tasks unfinished for weeks.

Solution: I stepped in as Product Manager to assign tasks in Asana, create a product roadmap, and write product requirements.

Setting and staying on deadlines

INITIAL PLATFORM DESIGN

Building something from nothing

Information architecture brainstorming for Suune

When I joined Suune, we only had an idea and an initial problem statement from the founder. As a team, we collaborated to ideate and design the initial product for Suune including visual branding, key user journeys, and product onboarding.

HOW WE BUILT IT

Step 1: Define key user personas

  1. Visual and fine artists who want an easy way to find new projects and manage invoices

  2. Creative Directors who are looking for a better way to connect with artists for their business needs

Step 2: Outline key user journeys

Step 3: Create information architecture and site plan

Step 4: Wireframes and initial design system

Step 5: High-fidelity mockups and alignment with engineering

Iterating on the best solution

Designing a 0 → 1 product meant leaning into best practices and insights from similar products plus any user insights we could gather. Plus, any designs needed to incorporate the Founder’s vision for the product. There were a lot of hopes and dreams for this product, which meant we had to ruthlessly prioritize features and user flows.

Ultimately, we identified that the key features needed for the MVP were:

  • Artist account creation and management – including creating a public portfolio

  • Client account creation and management – including posting a new opportunity

  • Messaging between Artist and Client

  • Project task management and milestones

I focused on several different user journeys including:

  1. Create a portfolio item as an artist

  2. Apply for a project as an artist

  3. Close a project as an artist

A few design iterations for the Artist’s view of a project in progress

Key flows for the best artist experience

Create a portfolio project

Target user: Artists

Problem statement: As a user, I want to create a portfolio to showcase my work to potential clients.

Design rationale: This journey is focused on allowing artists to quickly add past work to their profile, which will be included in proposal submissions on Suune. To accomplish this, I leaned on:

  • Familiarity: My goal was to use a format artists know from other platforms like Dribbble or Behance. Due to development restrictions for the MVP, I separated the steps of creating a portfolio project into image upload and project details. Future iterations would have a customizable canvas (more close to other tools).

  • Simplicity: Breaking this flow into two steps also enabled me to design a simple flow with shorter pages (vs. a longer scroll to add important details). This helps users reach their goals quickly and move on to other actions within the product.

Apply for an open job posting

Target user: Artists

Problem statement: As a user, I want to easily submit a proposal for a job I found on Suune.

Design rationale: My goals for this flow were to 1) clearly display job posting details, and 2) allow artists to submit a proposal quickly using their profile information. I aimed to convey:

  • Trust: Project details needed to include client information to establish credibility, as well as project details so the artist has an idea of how their style would work for this project.

  • Ease: When creating an account on Suune, artists are required to create at least 3 portfolio items. So there is no need to have portfolio selection as part of this process. However, I wanted to give artists a way to customize their proposal, so I added to option to add a message during submission.

This flow is quick, which allows artists to use information already included in their profile.

Apply for an open job posting

Target user: Artists

Problem statement: As a user, I want to quickly close a project when my work is done.

Design rationale: Closing a project should be an easy, painless process for artists. This is an important place to gather feedback and ensure that artists are having a positive experience on the platform. My goal was to incorporate:

  • Feedback: Asking for ratings and reviews gives artists the chance to let the Suune team know if the client was responsive and provided payment on time. Future iterations of the product include invoicing, so this stage ensures that the artist receives payment before closing the project.

  • Social proof: All though ratings and reviews are not included in the customer-facing MVP, gathering this data is important for future iterations as social proof will increase trust in the platform and clients who post projects.

What happened?

After designs were complete, they were passed to the Development team to begin MVP development sprint.

Next steps: Find initial users to gather feedback and iterate on current designs; then, begin designing additional features like invoicing, payment processing, and messaging.