Overview
Role: Product Designer
Date: Dec 2023 - Jan 2024
Skills: Branding, Illustration, UX/UI, Web Design
Summary: LinkinChat is an innovative Instagram-focused engagement tool and brand for streamlining link-sharing experiences. My role consisted of driving the vision of the brand and designing the site from low-fidelity wireframes to final product.
Context
AI has swept over the world in as little as seven months, becoming more powerful and efficient by the month. It is revolutionizing many industries, notably spearheading social media: the world of content, connection, and personal branding. LinkinChat is an AI-generated engagement tool, fully managed on Instagram. LinkinChat streamlines link-sharing experiences for influencers and brands by guiding followers straight to their site, shop, or newsletter. It's the simplest way to automated sending a link to people who ask for it in their comments.
LinkinChat operates seamlessly within Instagram, leveraging AI-powered tools for enhanced user engagement.
Target audience: Instagram content creators, influencers (food, travel, courses), with future inclusion of brands.
Configuration prioritizes DM interactions, prompting a focus on Instagram UX, while showcasing a brand through a web app.
Strategy emphasizes a minimalist landing page, with the primary UI within Instagram; occasional links redirect to mobile-friendly pages.
Process
User Feedback Insights
Through user interviews, I gathered some pain points that users experience when engaging with the current website template.
Feedback from Users
Visibility & Readability
Issues
The top paragraph's visual elements are not compelling, impacting readability. Additionally, dark images contribute to readability challenges.
Lack of Immediate Clarity on Functionality
Users find that the current design doesn't immediately convey what LinkinChat does. There's a need for a clearer presentation of its purpose.
Text-Heavy Sections and Lack of Visuals
Users find the current website too text-heavy and lacking graphics.
The user feedback insights highlights the need for visually striking elements and improved legibility, a necessity for a more straightforward presentation of its purpose, and the importance of concise selling points with visually engaging design to elevate the overall user experience.
The Problem Space
Establishing an Effective Online Presence and User Experience for LinkinChat's Instagram-Centric Platform Launch
As LinkinChat starts out as a new brand, the challenge lies in establishing a robust online presence and crafting an effective user experience for its Instagram-centric platform. With a focus on catering to Instagram influencers and content creators, the goal is to create a compelling brand image and website design that will lead users to actively engage within the Instagram environment.
Research & Exploration
Mood board
During the exploration phase of LinkinChat’s website design, I dived into different color schemes and themes to cultivate an aesthetic that resonates with the platform's dynamic audience, particularly influencers with vibrant lifestyles. The mood boards encapsulate two ideations – one featuring a pastel palette and the other embracing bolder colors. I researched diverse images and fonts to explore design directions for LinkinChat’s website.
Following feedback from the product owners, the emphasis shifted towards a predominant black and white scheme with subtle accents of color to convey sophistication while maintaining a sleek and professional appearance.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted competitive analyses on ManyChat and Chatfuel, chatbot-building platforms that leverage AI capabilities to enhance their functionality.
Manychat
Manychat is a platform that allows businesses and individuals to manage chatbots for marketing, customer support, and engagement purposes.
The website’s use of dynamic designs and images, accents of color, and friendly fonts makes it a great example to look onto for inspiration.
Chatfuel
Chatfuel is a messaging platform for e-commerce marketers and business owners who aim to increase lead generation and qualification, upsell, cross-sell, and boost revenue on WhatsApp.
The website makes a smart use of a bright color palette, appealing icons, and concise layout to deliver a visually engaging and user-friendly experience.
Design
I created several wireframes for LinkinChat, starting with low-fidelity sketches and designs, and moved to high-fidelity designs once the product owners were satisfied with initial concepts. For the Hi-Fi designs, I applied a bright color scheme of green and went with a bold, professional typography, maintaining consistency throughout different sections of the site. I designed wireframes for multiple screen sizes to experiment with different layouts and font sizes.
Low Fidelity
High Fidelity
From Figma to Framer
Throughout the design process, regular feedback was taken from the team for continuous improvements and refinements, and a user-centric approach was prioritized. All of the designs were created using Figma. The transition from design to a fully interactive prototype was implemented using Framer. The interactive features, animations, and user flows were prototyped and fine-tuned in Framer.
Reflection
In a brief amount of time, I collaborated with LinkinChat product owners to launch a revamped website. Targeting an audience of content creators and influencers passionate about their products, my goal as the product designer was to create a dynamic website with striking visuals and straightforward message. Throughout the process, I kept in consistent communication with product owners, prioritizing their mission and needs, and worked to establish LinkinChat's brand identity and a captivating website. I delved into various UI/UX elements such as user research, brainstorming, wireframing, prototyping, web design, etc. to implement the final design. For further considerations, I would allot more time in the beginning stage to do deeper user research and interview participants suitable for my research. Since the launch of the new website, LinkinChat has been partnering with multiple stakeholders excited to utilize linkinchat's innovative AI tools to drive their products.