Today is our one month anniversary at Movify. Emilie and I started off as fresh graduates and now, looking back at all the stuff we’ve learned and accomplished, you would think we’ve been here much longer. Lucky for us, there was a tight schedule to adhere to. A welcome brunch, a bit of training, a bit of project work and a full immersion into the role of UX Consultants. But let’s start by the introduction week.
Introduction week
Welcome Breakfast
What a promising start that was. Our first Monday meeting wasn’t at the Movify Office. Instead we were told to come to a local bakery. Here we met with the rest of the team for a yummy croissant and a friendly conversation over breakfast. The pleasant morning mood set the tone for our following days at Movify.
YoPo program
Time to get serious. Cédric, our business manager, briefed us on the YOPO program’s content and the possible career tracks that we could branch out into. You’re maybe wondering what YOPO is? It's a 24 months experience in the digital world aimed at boosting your expertise in 3 different areas: UX design, Project Management and Business management within Movify. The career paths are varied, leading to UX expert & coach all the way to Business Unit Manager.
He also informed us about the trainings offer throughout the program. From the many listed in our training catalogue, one specifically grabbed our attention: the UX conference @Nielsen Norman in London. What an incredible opportunity to learn from a leader in the User Experience field!
We switched into the Business side of the program, the role of a BM, which consists of three different fields: recruitment, people management and business development. Those three pillars will guide our learning path. They emphasize the importance of talent acquisition in the strategy of Movify and the challenge of recruiting people in the digital world.
Time for a drink
The cherry on the cake was an afterwork drink with the other consultants of the Young Potential Program, who shared their own experience. We also got to know our buddies, senior Movifyers, to whom we could ask any practical questions that came up. Good to know there is somebody you can turn to!
Getting ready for the first mission
The rest of the week we prepared ourselves for our first mission. To begin, we enjoyed an introduction session on User Experience and Design Thinking with Andreas. The point was to give us the tools and knowledge to lay the foundation for our first client proposition. We went through the process for problem-solving illustrated by Andreas' experiences. He shared with us real cases and highlighted the key points and issues that he faced.
Zoé introduced us to two very common tools used by UX designers: Sketch & InVision. This would come in handy later for when we needed to build our first prototype. Which would happen sooner rather than later because at the end of the week, we found out what our first mission was going to be.
First project in a Fintech Startup
A Fintech startup was looking to introduce UX into their workflow. It was up to us to understand their needs and pitch them the project idea! At this time, we had one thing in mind: "are they going to endorse this project?".
Good news! The Fintech Startup was thrilled by our project proposition and gave us the green light. One week after the beginning of our adventure at Movify, we could already start our first project as UX consultants. Completely excited, we jumped into the UX world but at the same time, a bit concerned about the time constraint... 3 weeks until we present our work to the client. Challenge accepted!
We were glad to meet the team we'll collaborate with over the next weeks and the challenging environment where we were going to work: a co-working space filled with entrepreneurial spirit.
To boost our learning curve in UX design, Movify took some initiatives. First, a mentorship program which allowed us to work alongside an expert in UX and design thinking: Andreas. Then, several complementary trainings and toolkits, such as the UX Bootcamp.
Project
Andreas taught us how to build an action plan and trigger our project. Defining the scope of the project was the first challenge. As the startup launched its beta version very early on the market based on a MVP strategy, they didn’t have the time to think about UX. So it let us room for creativity and improvement. Exciting!
Based on the strategic priorities of the company and the time constraint, we decided to tackle the onboarding:
Design the onboarding on the platform in order to help the client understanding the logic of it and reduce the work of the Customer Success Manager.
Once the scope was defined, it's was time to shape our master plan:
- Understand the existing onboarding, users and business needs, map pain points and conduct a competitive analysis
- Start an ideation session and write the design brief
- Create first sketch and design the onboarding flow
- Build the Invision prototype
- Test this prototype with users and adjust it accordingly
- Give insights for further steps
During the prototyping phase we felt the need to better understand the Sketch program to deliver a high value prototype. Erhan, UI designer @Movify, heard our call for help and nicely proposed to meet during lunchtime and give us a boost to improve our deliverables.
Finally, we prepared a presentation with all the client's team to close our 3 exciting weeks with them. The presentation gathered all our deliverables, our path of reflexion and the next steps we could undertake with them. This adventure ended on a positive note, with compliments from the Fintech Startup :
"Thanks to you, we have an excellent working base to move on further. You highlighted the painpoints where we could have a direct impact to improve the client onboarding " - Fintech Startup
Mentoring program - Professor Andreas
Since the seeds of the project, Professor Andreas (we are now convinced that Andreas was a professor in another life) was there to guide us till the end. Thanks to this program, we had the opportunity to learn best practices of UX, apply them and receive direct feedback. What better way to integrate UX in your mind?
At the beginning of the project, we were constantly together brainstorming and shaping the project. He taught us how to define a UX project whilst giving us room for initiatives, comments and ideas. By sharing his experience and tricks, we made a major step into the UX world. Thank you Andreas!
Take-Away
Beside all the UX tips and practices we've learned, this project particularly emphasized the importance of:
- Clarifying the deliverables at the beginning of the project
- Adapting the deliverables according to the audience
- While sticking to defined scope (due to time constraint), map new opportunities and stay flexible
- Understanding all the stakeholders and involving the client's team in the UX process
