For my competitive analysis I focused on Google Drive, Pinterest, and Dropbox. All three had strengths that they were free to use, with Drive and Dropbox offering paid storage solutions for those that exceed the free plan. A common strength was that the platforms made documents accessible across many devices. Common weaknesses were issues dealing with security and privacy, compatibility with older programs such a MS Office, and limited free storage.

A new player in this field should be able to provide security for their users, a free storage option, and cross-device compatibility.

I crafted a survey that asked users what their needs were for cloud storage. I wanted to see what features they found essential, and which features they utilized the least. Since the client wanted collaborative features, I also asked how users preferred to collaborate, to find out what methods were most popular, and if social sharing was important to users. File uploading and document editing were the clear winners in terms of frequency of use, and social sharing and saving items found on the web were not important features with users. This research helped me narrow down the scope and focus on essential features for users: file uploading, document editing, and sharing through email and links. A niche audience identified was educators.

Based on the survey, competitive analysis, and user personas, I created a list of the top high-priority user stories to include in the project.

For my branding work, I researched other educational technology platforms are referred back to the feedback from my survey and user testing. In my survey, users identified clean, sleek, and minimal designs as a plus. In my testing, users identified my wireframe text and buttons as too large. Therefore I wanted to create a brand that was sleek, minimal, and with a sizing hierarchy. I also wanted to keep the design bright, as many educational platforms use bright, fun colors.

Logo progression: I wanted an active, celebratory logo that signified student growth and success. At first I focused on cloud, lightbulb and brain visualizations, but after mentor feedback and other educational technology logo research, I decided to focus on images of celebrating children and trees that signify growth. After sketching, my design continued to evolve to be more dynamic and refined.

After doing preference testing, the following logo was chosen by a large margin as the favorite:

After testing my mockups, I received feedback that the logo was too small to read the details. Therefore I increased the size of the tree within the circle and thickened the stroke of the lines of the canopy of the tree.

Feedback on my first design was that it was outdated, and lacked high-quality finish. After researching other popular landing pages, I changed mine to be more colorful and follow best practices (second image). I submitted the new work to the DDC and Slack, and got lots of great feedback on how to improve it. The major feedback was to let the design “breathe” by adding more white space, eliminating the orange dividing line at top, reducing font and image sizes, and putting the gradient at the bottom (instead of the middle of the page) with a small section of gradient at top to tie it together. I also changed the sign in page based on preference testing results to have a more engaging visual:

Finally, I changed the tag option to be more explicit, which was a pain point when testing my wireframes. This change made the tagging and organizing tasks much easier for users to navigate when testing the high fidelity mockups:

I also got feedback that it was unclear which page the user was on when in the file view. Therefore I added a “home” screen and highlighted the active screen with a button to let the user know where they were navigating to. I also updated the buttons to match the buttons used in my style guide and elsewhere in the app.

I conducted several user tests of my high-fidelity mockup. Overall the response was very positive. I was excited that two of the users were able to navigate easily and also understood the organizational tools. I was also appreciative of the critical feedback from a less tech-savvy teacher. It helped me to understand that not everything I take for granted as simple will be understood by all users, and that I need to be explicitly literal in the copy I use on the page. I was also intrigued by the idea that the hero image was not organized, and didn’t match with the stated product goal in the copy. Therefore in my final version, I changed terminology of the tabs to match the terminology of the district that would use the product. I also simplified the vector image on the landing page to signify the organization the product offers. After testing a few options, a new, simpler vector image won in a preference test asking users to choose the image that best represented organization and efficiency. I also changed all the text to black based on user feedback to reduce the brightness. My testing results are below:

1. Submitting work to the DDC and getting feedback from Slack and my mentors was hugely influential on improving my design. I also loved getting the quick feedback from preference tests to make changes to my design based on user feedback.
2. My weakness is visual design, so it took a lot of time, feedback, and testing to get the design to a place where I was satisfied.
3. My doubts going into the project were not knowing where to focus because the client brief was so broad. Luckily the user survey helped me narrow down the focus.
4. The biggest surprise was with the logo choice by users. The one I liked was not chosen by users.
5. Although I spent a great deal of time on it, if I had more time I’d like to continue toying with the landing page. I also would like to refine the navigation bar buttons for the active screen.
6. I learned so much during the process, especially how to seek and respond to user feedback. I also felt my visual aesthetic improved with design critiques.
7. My biggest takeaway for future projects is to regularly submit work to the DDC and Slack to help myself grow as a designer! Critiques from fellow designers have been eye opening and immensely helpful.