Minor Project
27/9/2024 - 10/1/2025 (Week 1 - Week 15)
Seh Zi Qi/ 0355872/ Bachelor of Design(Honours) in Creative Media
Module Name: PRJ62204 Minor Project
Minor Project
LECTURES
Week 3:
What is Contextual studies?
- Find the market and be on par with the client
Data Gathering:
- Questions from the Interview can help with the survey part of the data collection
- Half baked questions come back with half-baked
- Do it in a Google/ Word Document first then Google Form
- All questions MUST be numbered
- Send the Doc to the Lecturer, once he’s ok w/ it => Do it in Google Form and let him test it out, once he’s ok w/ it => Send it out to the world
User Personas:
- Fictional but realistic portray of the person
- Identify their needs
- Paint a target on the user’s characteristics
- Crucial in making something useful and valuable for your research
- Important to communicate their needs and wants
- Get everyone to understand, not just designers
Represent real humans
Quantitative and qualitative
Persona groups => single user personas
Do one thing and do it well => focus on one group instead of getting
everyone’s interests because it’s not possible to satisfy everyone
User persona Guide:
- Fictional name
- Image
- Quote => Something that makes them stand out
- Factual Detail from User research
- Personal Background: Gender, Age,
- Professional Background: Occupation
- User Environment: Social technological aspects of their lives (locations, devices)
- psychographic: Users attitude, interests, dislikes
- User’s End Goals: What they want from the context above
- Scenario: describe your product in a particular way (when, where and how)
- Include details with a design purpose
INSTRUCTIONS
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src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/14mJBzsXn7CGPNDxoj0z4_tVoUsoWfkI2/preview"
width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
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MINOR PROJECT
Week 1 - Week 3:
This was our first lesson in this module so we were briefed about what our
lecturer, Mike, expects of us and the basics of what designers are. We also
had to create a group and once we were done, he briefed us again on the 3
given projects to which we were to dedicate our minor project. We decided to
choose EXPEDIO Project X-Board Idea Space.
Fig 1.1, Project Briefing
_________
For Week 2, we were set up with the Miro Board that Mike gave and continued
from there. We aligned our objectives, he gave us a notice on the contextual
studies and what we needed to do.
We decided to conduct our own research to gather information such as market
research, competitors with similar products, and exploration of different
products in digital and real-world spaces.
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| Fig 2.1, Contextual Studies #7 |
While we were doing our contextual studies, we also made questions for the
client meeting in week 3.
Questions to ask the clients during Week 3 meeting:
- What is the primary goal of the Expedio X-Board?
- Why did you create the Expedio X-Board? What was the initial reason(s) for creation? What inspired you?
- How do you envision the product standing out in the market? What makes it different from competitors?
- Can you elaborate on the primary target audiences? Which group (creatives, corporate leaders, educators) should we prioritize?
- Do you have any existing brand guidelines? If so, should we align with those, or are you open to a fresh brand identity for the X-Board?
- What key messages do you want the audience to associate with the X-Board? Flexibility, creativity, collaboration—any other core ideas?
- What are your expectations for the website? Should it be more focused on lead generation, showcasing the product, or facilitating direct purchases?
- Answer: Showcasing the product. In the same website, and ikea-like style
- Do you have preferred SEO keywords or competitors you'd like to benchmark against?
- What tone and style do you want for the website and marketing materials? Formal, casual, innovative, or professional?
- Answer: innovative & casual- mass market so they want it to be casual yet formal?
- What kind of content do you think resonates most with your audience? Blog posts, case studies, videos, or customer testimonials?
- Answer: they want TikTok videos, short form content, fun interactive and engaging. lifestyle content,
- Do you already have any case studies or customer stories that we can leverage, or will we need to generate those?
- What kind of email campaigns do you want to focus on? Product promotions, educational content, or nurturing leads through a funnel?
- Answer: Educational content- not the traditional marketing way
- What do you mean by creating segmented email lists? can you explain/describe/give an example of this? would you like a general one or a different for each category (creatives, corporates, educated)
- How aggressive do you want the lead generation efforts to be? Should we focus on long-term nurturing or quicker conversions?
- Answer: Focus on building a community, because along the way they want to launch more products like office accessories- its our first product in this market, so they want to build a fanbase first, just want followers.
- Are there any risks or challenges you're particularly concerned about? Technical limitations, audience adoption, or market competition?
_________
For Week 3, we also had our first client meeting, during which we got
information and answers to the questions stated in Week 2. We also finished the Empathy Map as much as we could during this period but have made changes to it every so often before the second client meeting in Week 7.
 |
| Fig 3.1, Empathy Map |
Week 4 - 6:
We started our survey to collect data to be used in our user personas. We
were to finish the questions by Week 4, send them out in the same week and
analyse the data during Week 5.
Survey Link:
Survey Responses:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PQQRWicsH2TX0nBRGDWuLXklV8ZRytaS3jatGrOXHNU/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PQQRWicsH2TX0nBRGDWuLXklV8ZRytaS3jatGrOXHNU/edit?usp=sharing
_________
After analysing the data on Week 5, we created our user personas and user journey maps to get a perception of how personas may interact with the initial product before and after being purchased.
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| Fig 4.1, User Persona Raihanna |
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| Fig 4.2, User Persona Jason |
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| Fig 4.3, User Persona Mariam |
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| Fig 4.4, Raihanna's User Journey Map |
_________
On Week 6, we finished the sections Insights Discovery, The Problem Statement, How Might We...? and Goal Statement, this ensured that the group knew what our main objective was after analysing everything that we've done so far.
 |
| Fig 5.1, Insights Discovery, The Problem Statement, How Might We...? & Goal Statement |
We've also started to prepare our project proposal slides for the client meeting on Week 7.
Canva Link:
X Board Project by Group 3
Fig 5.2, Group 3 X-Board Project Proposal
Week 7:
We had our second client meeting where we had to showcase our project
proposal, current ideas and more. They liked our ideas so we needed more work
to back up our ideas.
Week 9 - 11:
For these weeks, we focused our efforts on the marketing strategies, especially the implementation plans of the Customer Journey Map. This is to ensure that the 'Marketing Team', which consists of Akif, Elysa and I, have an understanding of what needs to be done and have it out by the weeks that we have been given. It also helps everyone else to know what we need during this phase and they can help out by creating the title and taglines for the blogs and emails.
- Social Media = Dark Blue
- Website = Light Green
- Content Ideas = Yellow
- Activities = Pink
- Blog = Turquoise
- Email Campaign = Light Blue
- Packaging = Purple
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| Fig 6.1, Customer Journey Map |
Week 12 - 14:
Week 12 is when we established an art direction for the group. This is useful to have when it comes to having different people create marketing posts as we all have different styles when it comes to creating but with a set art direction, we can all produce somewhat cohesive results.
 |
| Fig 6.1, Art Direction |
I was in charge of the marketing posters, Elysa was in charge of the editing and Akif was in charge of the 3D teaser video. I made the posters using Adobe Illustrator, using white and black as my background colours, I used grey and red as accent colours to liven up the posts.
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| Fig 7.1, Post Poster Progression |
Using the Customer Journey Map as a guide, I made the posts according to the social media, activities and packaging sticky notes.
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| Fig 7.2, Post Posters Compilation #1 |
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| Fig 7.3, Post Posters Compilation #2 |
Fig 7.3, Static Post Posters #3
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FINAL Minor Project
Minor Project Brand Proposal Presentation Slides
X-Board Final Presentation
by Group 3
Expedio Website Prototype
Fig 15.1, Expedio Prototype Website, 10/12025
Miro Board Link:
Gantt Chart Link:
Project Tracking Document Link:
FEEDBACK
Week 1:
Week 2:
- Clients are never sure
- If they don't like, then they won't respond
- We need to research more on what they want and what we can give
- Confirm the target demographic or what the company wants to change and stuff (They have to be absolutely sure with what they want)
- Ask questions so we know what they absolutely want
Week 2:
- Prepared questions to ask the client for the meeting
- Planned the meeting time
- Prepare questions to ask the client first, don't already start finding problems and making solutions
- The client is never really sure what they want, so prepare good questions to be clear
- Prepared questions and showed them to the lecturer, editing them according to his feedback
Week 3:
- Do not message them outside of working hours 10AM-6PM, or the weekends.
- When asking for files, images etc., u must ask for the whole class & not for your group only & u must ask my permission first.
- When asking to visit their site, again u either ask the whole class first & arrange as a class or u ask me to arrange for u.
- When sending messages, please use proper english & try not to use acronyms or slangs.
- Before u ask anything from them, u must first make sure u nor the whole class does not have it & check with me if it’s a appropriate to ask it from them.
Week 4:
- Showed lecturer the planned survey questions and received feedback to edit them
- Make sure that every question you ask, you benefit from the answers, that they will be of use to you
Week 7:
- Had meeting with client to present our proposal and current progress/ ideas
- They like the design direction
- They like the cork base idea
- Moodboard for website:
- Wording is stylish and well arranged + presented
- Font is not consistent cuz some are serif and some are sans serif
- Would prefer more consistent fonts
- Expedio intends to release the boards in different sizes
- To cater to a larger group of customers
- All groups' submissions are separate, this is not a competition
Week 9:
- Put everything in the Journey Map in the Miro board
- Don't make the client waste money, most things you put out should be a hit and not a miss
- Plan out a marketing timeline for the customer journey map, like what you expect the return to be during the time frame (e.g. 1 month) (reference the example on the Miro board lol)
- List down the social media that you want to market on and then everyone choose an app to analyse (what you're familiar with)
- Look at references about how the awareness impacts us from other brands
- If no experience, look at case studies
- Introduction is not hard selling, just teasing How often do they rinse and repeat during that 1 month?
- Decide your number of posts based on your own experience and limits
Week 10:
- Your implementation plan is not convincing in meeting the How Might We intentions. This plan will not answer all of the How Might We questions conclusively. You need to improve. Take a look at your seniors’ final work, on how they ensure that their HMWs are conclusively answered.
- Implementation plan is the amount, frequency, types of communication/content u are planning to orchestrate into a practical schedule of release, in order to achieve or meet the various stages’ outcomes/user needs. Refer to the seniors’ final presentation on how they planned it & u can get a real sense of the practicality & effectiveness of their plans. They always linked it back to answering the HMWs conclusively.
Week 11:
Before Changes
- Sticky notes have more thought to make the plan practical, is better
- Points 3 & 4 requested by the client was not found in the stickies
- Some HMWs are a bit generic though but it's ok (I think)
- Ask yourself, do your clients suddenly realise that they need this new whiteboard? Are they even modern teams?
- According to the points, Expedio is saying that our target audience is not aware on how to collaborate. That's why blogging is needed, to show and tell them that they need this product
- Write headlines and captions for the blog only (rest can be Lorem Ipsum) that create awareness among the target audience.
- Need pictures though to show the format
- For email marketing, create a list of emails that is strategically and periodically released to them
- Create separate emails for the different target audiences listed
- Again, headlines and captions only for emails, rest can be dummy text
- Make the customers realise that they have a need in the first place before you hard sell
- Blog posts need to be more engaging to get people to give their emails
- During advertising stage we aren't revealing everything, so we use that to tease them and make them give emails
Week 12:
- Art direction board must be there in Miro board
- Everything within our proposal presentation slides must be rationalized (e.g. why we chose the typefaces? Why did we choose the color palettes? Graphic elements must be created, why did we decide to make this logo with this design?)
- Brand values must be in the art direction board to give clearer directions
- Have keywords and from there, rationalize everything
- Include visual style as well
Week 13:
- Create logo and brand for X-Board, not Expedio
- Font size is off on the second page of Figma prototype
- Footer is lacking
- Need more consistency (lines, graphics etc.)
- No time for showing it to him anymore
- Just make sure the sketches follow the art direction
- Draft the main poster (?) to settle and lock down the art direction
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Create the key visual to be compared against for every other post
REFLECTION
For this module, I was able to learn about a world that is completely new
to me and have a taste of what designers will face in their careers when
working for a company. There was a lot to do, especially when clients were
involved with certain goals we had to meet to satisfy them and everyone
involved in the process. We had a lot of ups and downs when it came to
time management, scheduling our workload, communication and more, but we
were all able to push through to the end and finish what we had started. From the observations I've made, I was quite motivated by my classmates' work, especially Group 5, where they had so many good ideas that it was almost impossible to compete with; yet we all stood strong with what we were able to produce and felt that it was generally enough to back up with the good ideas we had. Overall, this module taught me a valuable experience that I will never forget. As designers, we need to solve problems creatively and to stay at the top, we must be innovative and jumpstart our process without hesitation as that is what stops creatives from reaching their true potential.
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