USAXUser Experience Brief
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Project Phases
Business Drivers
Guiding Principles
User Personas
Content Types
Key Recommendations
Next Steps
Appendix A
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Introduction
USAX has engaged EPAM to design its social commerce website. The
Discovery Phase of the project assessed the functional requirements and
business goals necessary to design a fully functional and scalable website.
This document serves as the culmination of the Discovery Phase which
included stakeholder strategy sessions, requirements gathering and a
thorough review of artifacts. In it, we present our findings and provide
recommendations concerning information architecture and design while
balancing business needs, technology requirements and desired user
experience.
Once we have achieved consensus around the overall concepts
communicated in this document, EPAM will embark on the Design Phase of
this project.
During the Design Phase, we will create a site map, annotated wireframes
and design composites for the USAX website.
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Project Overview
High level schedule of project phases.
The Information Architecture Process
Information Architecture is the art and science of expressing a model or concept for information. It is used in web development, user interactions, and other
activities that require expressions of complex systems. The purpose of this process is to begin with conceptual representations of the application or Web site
being designed and progressively detail each component of the concept, all the while garnering consensus and approval.
Creating and socializing the Digital Strategy / Conceptual Organizational Model (COM) is the second step in this process.
Stakeholder Interviews,
User Research &
Competitive Review
1
Digital Strategy / COM
2
Site Map
3
Detailed
Wireframes
4
Visual
Design
5
Sept – ‘15 Oct – ‘15 Nov– ‘15 Dec– ‘16
Information Architecture
Visual Design
Jan – ‘16
Discovery & Planning
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Business Drivers: What business challenges are we trying to address?
Pre-filled basic LCCP profiles
Self promotion through a detailed profile
Increased visibility with minimal effort
Expanded access to potential partnerships
Patriotic appeal
Robust search including financial, regional, industrial and
demographic filters
Public display of avaialable opportunities
Restriction of communications to registered users
Job opportunity posts
Business event posts
Make USAX the “go to” place for deals.
Robust user support
Automatic filtering and manual content moderation
Automatic notifications of status updates
Promotion Growth
Community Oversight
A revolutionary social commerce approach for
promoting local communities' business
opportunities with potential global business
partners.
Expand the base community, transition to paid
memberships and capture market share.
Automatic LCCP-Business opportunities matching
Business collaboration workspace
Confidential business communications
Full social media and mobile interactivity
Creation and sharing of content
Paid and gamification award based advertising
Ensure site moderation, user engagement
and support.
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MaintainabilityValue Utility Achievability
Guiding Principles
As we proceed through the design process, the following principles will steer our decision making:
Will the solution pay real dividends
in terms of user satisfaction,
profitability and effectiveness?
Is the money spent on the solution
equal to its business impact?
Can it be done given potential
constraints around:
Budget
Technology
Security Needs
Resource Availability and Skill
Sets
Schedule
Are the content and functional
components truly useful to users?
Are they essential to the deal
making processes people do on a
daily basis?
Will the site provide better, more
efficient ways of doing things?
Will users be able to quickly learn
how to use the site and leverage
its content and functionality?
Has the solution been “right sized”
to the business goals?
Will the internal team be able to
manage the breadth of content
and functional components?
Will the solution be scaleable?
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Buyer
Seller Moderator
User Personas
As we proceed through the design process, the following principles will steer our decision making:
Providers of goods, services and labor from
anywhere around the world.
Buyers need to identify prospective business
partners and increase their revenue stream.
Financial
Product & Service Providers
Government & Organizations
Job Seekers
Veterans
Buyers will benefit from the automatic
matching processes on the USAX website.
They’ll also be able to locate opportunities by
industry, geographic and other criteria. The
website will allow Buyers to contact
prospective partners through secure internal
communications.
Website administrators who moderate or
manually curate content and communications
within the website.
Moderators are the forward facing
administrators of the website, ensuring timely
delivery of updated information, providing top
notch user support and also moderating and
filtering out inappropriate content posted by
users.
Owners of, purveyors of, or marketers of
economic development or business
opportunities within U.S. states and territories.
Sellers need to market themselves and
promote their business opportunities to a
wider market.
Local Community Content Providers
Business Brokers
Commercial & Industrial Property Brokers
Business Owners
Franchises
Direct Marketers
Sellers will leverage USAXs advertising and
promotional tools by presenting and defining
business opportunities. Sellers can vet
prospective business partners through
detailed profile reviews, seller provided
feedback and confidential communications.
Buyer
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Content Types
Buyer Profiles
SummaryProvide potential buyers with an easily
accessible and findable marketing presence
within the website which can be regularly
updated and indexed based on user curated
content.
Buyer profiles are vital to the successful
operation of the website’s opportunity
matching and searching functionality.
Accurate profiles will give USAX users the
ability to vet potential partners prior to
committing additional time and resources.
Types Financial Service Providers
Product & Service Providers
Government & Organizations
Job Seekers
Veterans
Other
Seller Profiles
SummaryEnable Local Community Content Providers
to promote business partnership
opportunities on a global scale through a
socially interactive platform that will allow
LCCPs to leverage limited resources for
maximum exposure and results.
Seller profiles serve as the baseline for
opportunity matching throughout the online
business community.
Accurate profiles will give USAX users the
ability to vet potential partners prior to
committing additional time and resources.
Types Economic Development Organizations
Chambers of Commerce
Visitors Bureau
Business Brokers
Commercial & Industrial Property
Brokers
Business Owners
New Franchises
Direct Marketing
“Anonymous”
Service, Product, Project, Deal
SummaryProvide
Types Business for Sale
Commercial & Industrial Property
New Franchise
Direct Marketing Opportunities
Service
Product
Project
Deal
Confidential
Supporting Documentation
SummaryDocumentation uploaded and curated by
the various USAX users. Promotional
materials that support projects and deals,
or more general content that i llustrates
business history, success stories,
community information, financial or
demographic information which would be
useful to both Buyers and Sellers.
Types Legal Documentation
Photography & Video
Forms
Maps
Architectural Plans
Demographic Information
Community, Communication
SummaryEnable Buyers and Sellers to engage in
initial conversations which can then
develop into more robust interaction and
eventual collaboration.
Provide users the ability to interact with
each other using established social media
techniques and processes.
Ensure security and confidentiality through
strictly enforced protocols.
Types User to User Messaging
Secure E-mail
“Following” and Bookmarking
Collaborative Work Spaces
Gamification
Advertising and Promotional Content
Content Sharing
Content of the USAX website can be divided in to three major groups: User-related pages/documents, Business Opportunity-related pages/documents, and
pages/documents that facilitate USAX user collaboration. The following chart provides additional definitions.
Users Business OpportunitiesCollaboration
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Key Recommendations
Develop an integrated, access-defined, layered
system which provides public visibility and
private communication and collaboration
between potential business partners.
Establish exhaustive, individualized user
profiles which will drive the user experience
through automated content promotion via
taxonomy matching, combined with manually
selected preferences, settings and short cuts.
Design a secure environment for registered
users, allowing for communication, document
uploading and sharing as well as online
applications and other interactions
comparable to popular social media platforms.
Digital Ecosystem
User defined and controlled workspaces
Secure system for communicating sensitive or private information
Users and content that can be shared, followed and rated.
Integration with external social media platforms and independent
websites.
Highly relevant content “pushed” to individual users based on their
profile (e.g., industry, geography, etc.)
Customizable “quick links”
Displayed content from “followed” or bookmarked users
Fully editable user profiles
Intuitive navigation that provides direct access to website content
Fully federated search that combs all website content
Faceted taxonomy that improves users’ ability to narrow and sift
through results
Automated seller-buyer business opportunity matching
Opportunity
Highly detailed
user profile Customizable
components
A social commerce platform geared towards matching local community
opportunities with global business partners
Publicly shared content available to anonymous users
Private or confidential content available only to registered users
Integrated user-promoted advertising based on pay and performance
models
USAX
Navigation & Search
Personalized Experience & Engagement
Communication & Collaboration
Provide a well designed and maintained
navigation structure and search which
establishes connections between content
objects and users, thereby enabling more
effective discovery and communication.
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Digital Ecosystem
Recommendations
Develop a two-tiered system whereby public information may be
viewed by any anonymous visitor, but private information is restricted
to registered users only.
Incentivize registration by restricting communication within the
website to registered users only.
Provide an easily accessible workspace where users may
communicate and collaborate on various projects or business
opportunities.
Enable a social media-like approach for users and content, where
connections, ratings and followings can be established and
maintained.
Provide standardized templates for specific types of users, deals and
other business entities/opportunities.
Develop internal advertising support, allowing for paid or
performance-based (gamification) promotion for both buyers and
sellers.
Promotion
Communication
Collaboration
EDO
Business &
Property
Brokers
Business
Owner
Veterans
Financial
Product &
Service
Providers
Government
&
Organizations
Job Seekers
Franchises
Projects
Deals
Deals
Projects
Visitors
Bureau
Chamber of
Commerce
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Navigation & Search
Navigation Recommendations
Establish a simple yet comprehensive navigational structure that does
not rely on industry expertise or institutional knowledge.
Develop a “spoke and hub” content approach where the user’s profile is
the focal point to which the vast majority of related content is
associated.
Determine basic labeling scheme for all website content.
Provide breadcrumbs to support cognitive mapping.
Make calls-to-action prominent.
Search Recommendations
Establish content-based and task-based taxonomy within a fixed
vocabulary.
Index all relevant content under one search engine.
Implement a keyword-driven, faceted search engine.
Leverage titles, metadata and taxonomy to help with all searches.
Identify specific tags for industrial, demographic, geographic, etc.
needs and definitions.
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Personalized Experience & Engagement
Personalization Recommendations
Create an experience that is personally relevant to each user. This
will be achieved by automatically promoting content based on user
profile and content tagging.
Employ features to produce an experience that is professionally
relevant to each user.
Design the architecture of the site so that user pathways are
presented in an appropriate way.
Develop a system that will track user behavior and provide more
relevant information as user interaction increases.
Engagement Recommendations
Allow users to create bookmarks/favorites.
Allow users to “favorite” or follow other users.
Promote constant user interaction through a gamification strategy.
The strategy may include a points based system with rewards such as
badges, levels or other promotional opportunities.
Design the system to track and learn from user behavior in order to
offer up users who might have potential business opportunities.
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Collaboration and Communication
Recommendations
Incorporate advanced community features such as opportunity
matching, threaded discussions/forums, user comments, groups and
user ratings of content.
Provide a secure platform for communication between registered
users.
Provide access to user maintained information related to projects,
deals and other business opportunities.
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NEXT STEPS...
1. Site Map
2. Wireframes
Determine pages that have a similar purpose and create templates
that reinforce that purpose.
Develop common components that help achieve page and content
purpose.
Design templates to maximize usability on tablets and other mobile
devices.
Provide dedicated spaces for related tasks.
3. Visual Design
Following the presentation of this User Experience Brief, the project team will begin work on the following Information Architecture and
Graphic Design deliverables:
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Appendix A: Brainstorming Results
LCCPs
Don’t be left out
Personal prestige
More leads last month
I was found
It was easy
I am special
De-hired web designer
Shift marketing budget
Reduced workload
Making America great
I can finally outsource
I am in the cloud
Changed the way do business
Leveled the LCCP playing field
I have been recognized
I stopped using Facebook
Buyers
More leads last month
It was easy
Reduced workload
Making America great again
Changed the way I do business
I stopped using Facebook
Reduced time to close
Increased revenue –qualified leads
Leverage
No consulting fees
Bypass broker
Unsought opportunity
Facilitate access
Vetted turnkey professionals
Anonymous
Matching for happy ending
During two stakeholder brainstorming sessions, a list of benefits the website will offer potential users was created: