Redefining Partnership Management with AI-Driven Innovation
Role
Visual Designer
Year
2022
Company
Verticals
Description
Utopia is an AI platform designed to address the inefficiencies in the traditional partnership formation process by utilizing AI to automate and optimize partner identification and management tasks. Utopia analyzes a multitude of data points to recommend the most suitable partners, thereby accelerating the early stages of partnership development and reducing the risk of unproductive collaborations.
Overview
This case study delves into the design and implementation of Utopia. It highlights the challenges faced by partner managers and how Utopia’s intuitive UI and UX address these issues by streamlining the partner identification and management process. The primary focus such as AI-generated recommendations and partner boards, which collectively enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of partnership strategies in the tech industry.
Problem
In the world of technology partnerships, partner managers face significant challenges in identifying and cultivating new partnerships. The traditional methods are manual, time-consuming, and fraught with inefficiencies, often leading to delayed results and potential misalignment with strategic goals.
Gathering Insights
Based on the discussion with the stake holders and users, our team conducted affinity mapping to synthesise the pains identified. We used the What-Why-How to categorise and understand the core value. We grouped these problems under common themes and features in the platform, which were as follows:
- AI-Driven Recommendations to analyze data and recommend ideal partners.
- Funnel Approach to guide users from initial recommendations to a comprehensive dashboard.
- Resource Provision to give important estimates for executing partnerships.
- Facilitating strong partnerships through strategic
User Journey
Based on the data collected so far, next step was to create a user journey to provide the stake holders, PM and engineers with visibility into the key areas of the platform that needed to be addressed from a usability standpoint. Here's a summary for the user journey
- Setup: Users log in and input partnership goals.
- AI Recommendations: Utopia suggests potential partners, sorted into actionable tiers.
- Partner Boards: Users manage tasks and track partnership progress on customizable boards.
- Value Propositions: Joint goals and benefits are outlined and promoted within the platform.
- Progress Tracking: Users monitor and adjust their partnership strategies for optimal results.
Wireframing
After outlining the user journey, the team then focused on the low fidelity designs to gather feedback from the PM, Engineers and stake holders on the overall layout and structure of the utopio platform. This was super helpful as the wireframes filled in some missing blanks that were not discussed earlier during the user journey definition.
Visual Identity
Creating a visual identity for Utopia involved a strategic and thoughtful design process, ensuring that the brand’s essence was captured visually and emotionally. Here’s how we approached the creation of Utopia’s visual identity:
- Understanding the Brand Essence: The first step understand Utopia’s mission, values, and the audience. We held meetings with stakeholders to extract key brand attributes, which served as the foundation for the visual identity.
- Inspirational Starting Point: Our client’s affinity for the colors of the sky at sunset provided a unique starting point. From this, we extracted two primary colors: a warm, vibrant orange (#FB6514) representing energy and creativity, and a deep, rich blue (#000038) for trust and stability. These colors not only resonate with the client’s preferences but also reflect Utopia’s dynamic and reliable platform.
Design Ideation
The next step was to refined the layout and structure into high fidelity to ensure a clear hierarchy of information and intuitive navigation paths. During this phase I was constantly in touch with the stakeholders and the PM to gather their feedback and iterate upon it. The feedback was mainly gathered synchronously via weekly meetings and asynchronously via Figma.
This phase reminds me of the iterative design process in which a product goes through cycles of testing and feedback until it meets the desired goals. It's a flexible approach that fosters continuous improvement and adaptation to changing requirements.
Final Designs & Reflection
This project became my favorite due to the fascinating and demanding challenges it presented. Designing an AI platform that serves technical partnership management was intriguing due to the challenges of a unique domain, complex user flows and balancing client requirements. While I would have appreciated the opportunity to validate our design choices through user testing, the constraints of a tight timeline didn't allow for it. Nevertheless, our successful collaboration led to exceeding our client's requirements and even earned us an invitation for further collaboration. Unfortunately, I couldn't participate further due to my assignment on another project. In the end, this project marked a significant milestone in my skill development journey.
Reflection And Results
What would I have done differently?
1. Engaging users early in the design process could provide valuable insights that might refine the problem statement and design direction.
2. Expanding the research to include a wider range of industries and company sizes could uncover diverse needs and expectations, leading to a more versatile platform.
3. Implementing more frequent cycles of usability testing throughout the design process could help identify and address issues sooner, reducing the need for major changes later on.
What did I find challenging?
1. Creating a user-friendly interface that also offers comprehensive features was a delicate balance to maintain.
2. Ensuring seamless integration with tools like Slack required careful consideration of different workflows and user habits.
3. Overcoming initial resistance to adopting a new platform is always challenging, especially when it involves changing established workplace behaviors.