Phaseo


Designing a mobile app for creative small-business owners.

Phaseo is a mobile project management and CRM designed for creative small-business owners. It allows users to manage projects, centralize workflows, communicate with clients, easily monetize their business, and shop in an eCommerce marketplace.

This is a solo project in which I worked through the product design process, from research to prototyping. I wanted to design a product that helps passionate creatives easily monetize from their skillsets and raises their brand’s awareness.



01 Discovery

Identifying the problem space.Casual conversations in my community revealed creative small-business owners experience stress and anxiety connected to time-consuming tasks of growing small-businesses. Qualitative interviews and competitive analysis helped me discover root causes of the problem space. People experienced time constraints and were disinterested in learning to use the market’s current project and CRM tools due to busy schedules and financial limitations.



Setting the right goals.Users wanted to save time to focus energy on better business processes, passion projects, and personal lives. They sought simple and affordable ways to manage projects and clients, generate revenue, and establish brand awareness. This insight gave me purpose to provide a platform that empowers users to feel at ease while growing their creative small-businesses. My goal was to develop a product with solutions that simplify complexity, improve usability, and encourage tool adoption.




02 Synthesis and ideation

Creative small-business owners are the North Star.Defining and prioritizing user groups helped narrow down the product’s features. Primary user groups of the app are creatives and small-business owners that offer various products and services. People looking to commission products or services from through an in-app marketplace are secondary users. Anyone wanting to browse and shop for products and services from an online marketplace are considered tertiary users


Click on the arrows above to toggle through user personas  



Crazy 8s
How Might We? Questions

Defining User Flow
Some key takeaways and value propositions:

Save People TimeQuick goal completion and decision-making
Inclusive Affordability Consideration of user devices and affordability
Help Users FocusWorkboards for brainstorming and organizing ideas
Collaborative
In-app communication for effective collaboration
Generate User Revenue
Empower revenue generation with a marketplace
Drive Brand AwarenessPersonalized online shops for enhanced brand visibilityUser RetentionA marketplace tailored for creative exploration
Ethical ShoppingTransparent and ethical online shopping experiences

03 Design


Divergent Design IdeasDesign concepts centered around time efficiency, addressing project management challenges, enhancing stakeholder-client communication, and empowering users in an eCommerce marketplace.



Organizing multiple features with a site map.A sitemap for the product’s information architecture delineated each feature as its own ecosystem. This approach ensured a cohesive structure to prevent disorganization and facilitating seamless wayfinding.





Wireframes and Prototypes
Based on the current information architecture, I designed prototypes for testing and feedback at low-fidelity and high-fidelity stages. This helped me better understand user flows and overall usability.




A ubiquitous and expressive brand that influences perception.
Phaseo’s brand and product visual identity system speaks to the expression of creative intellect and grand ideas.




04 Solution


Making creative work easy.Phaseo is all-in-one standalone mobile app tailored for creative small-business owners. It simplifies work, empowering users to seamlessly grow, market, and monetize their businesses through a user-friendly platform integrating project management, CRM, and eCommerce functionalities.


Save time now.
Streamlined project management for creative professionals. Define scopes, create to-do lists, and manage finances. Focus on important tasks through each phase for a seamless process.



Centralize workflows.
Generate project-specific invoices. Set due dates, define product quantities and discounts, and easily share PDF versions. Eliminate the need for multiple tools.


Easy collaboration.
Users and clients can directly communicate using a RichText Editor to add or reply to comments. This facilitates smooth interaction for addressing questions, brainstorming, providing updates, and scheduling alignments.




Effectively monetize.
Create a customizable no-code shopfront to elevate brand presence on the Phaseo Marketplace. Show and sell products and services with ease in a way that reflects your unique brand identity.




04 Testing

An MVP prototype was tested in early wireframe stage, providing data that positively affected the second iteration of the app. Affinity maps and questionnaires recorded behavior and sentiment for 5 participants and 3 user flows. Success was measured through task completion time and SUS scores. Testing goals included assessing participant behavior and feelings about product usefulness, usability, efficiency, sastisfaction, and productivity.
100%
Conversion Rate
100%
Error Occurrence
80%
Confusion
60%
Indifference
An increase in saved time and positive feedback as a result.Data collected from usability studies guided areas of improvement. Feedback gathered participants and peers during the high-fidelity prototype stage helped create a better user experience. Leaning into simplicity by avoiding feature bloat and reducing the number of choices made by users positively influenced later product iterations.

Users were pleased about Phaseo’s aesthetic usability, increased time saved during project management, and other necessary CRUD functions that allowed the ability to create, read, update, and delete content in the app.


05 Takeaways

Addressing feature overload and premature branding saved valuable time spent on technical debt during design. I adopted a 'Keep it simple, stupid' approach with a minimum viable product and emphasized frequent testing, feedback, and iterative refinement. Phaseo enhanced my research skills, allowing me to develop data-driven potential solutions for the needs of my local community.
Angela Maximo
angelamaximo.design
San Francisco Bay Area