Knomad is a startup dedicated to establishing the premier professional trust network. As the lead UX designer, my primary responsibility is to transform the platform's vision into a user-focused experience that prioritizes the creation of trusted professional connections. The goal at Knomad is to emphasize meaningful interactions, thereby enhancing the entrepreneurial experience with a network that's both reliable and of high quality. The design approach is anchored in the principle of Trust, ensuring that the platform's development is guided by user feedback. Collaborating closely with Knomad’s founder, we have iterated several versions of the platform, each iteration refining the platform's functional focus. The current iteration aims to streamline the process for users to connect with freelancers, making it more efficient and user-friendly.
People who are looking to collaborate, especially during the pandemic, faced the challenge of eroding trust on professional network platforms. The current networking landscape often prioritizes quantity over quality, leading to superficial connections that fail to support genuine entrepreneurial needs. All these factors manifest in practical scenarios such as finding mentorship on a project or a freelance partner for certain tasks.
To collect user insights, I joined the founder in conducting interviews with other entrepreneurs, utilizing guides I had developed. We complemented these insights with survey data from similar focus groups, enhancing our understanding of our users' pain points. This approach also reinforced the needs we had identified through the structured interviews. We then pinpointed our key user persona: Vince, an entrepreneur in need of finding proficient freelancers and obtaining mentorship. His needs align with the data collected from user interviews.
Leveraging this information, we envisioned features such as Asks, user profiles, and a messaging system that would support those needs reflected in our qualitative data and persona development. I further charted a user such as Vince would journey through the app for two main objectives: finding freelance support and receiving mentorship. Additionally, I conceptualized the idea of assignable tags that users can endorse each other with, serving as indicators of an individual's reliability concerning specific attributes. These functions are shown in the low-fi mockups here.
