Team High Five - eBusiness

Team High Five is our team name and not only because of our team of five, but also high five represents greeting, celebration, congrationlation, coorperation and successful, and this well interprate our team spirit and our project spirit.

Here are our team members:

Hui Ee Chua - 43863480

Kaho Ha - 43995783

Yaxin Cui - 44450672

Haoxiang Zheng - 44256810

Mehroz Abbasi - 43515181

All of members will contribute to project and try to present our project in the best condition with technical and user experience perspectives.

Design Process Report

Week 8 Stand Up: Click Here

Week 10 Stand Up: Click Here

Week 12 Stand Up: Click Here

Our Prototype: Link Here

Our Website: Link Here

Promotional Materials: A2 Poster & Brochure & Promotional Website & Promotional Video

Introduction:

The project entails an online social web platform that provides solution to new entrepreneurs and aspiring businessmen to reach like-minded people to team up and start a business. As part of the community dilemma, the social community makes it easy for anyone looking to start a business or learn more by communicating to other experienced business professionals.Users are able to create searchable profiles, identify their interests using unique hashtags and search potential partners using the skill matchmaking.

Diagram flow of process:

Research

Research about competitors:

Differences between competitors with our concept: In the progress of developing our concept, we have done some research about competitors and existing solution. Our researcher have analysed the function of website from three competitors (indeed.com, jobsearch.gov.au, businesspartners.com) compared to our concept. The aim of this research is to find out what are the exisiting solution from these websites provided for our target audience: business owner, start-up entrepreneur, investor and individual who seeking for partnership or job. It also explained the function of each website compared to the function which we will provided for our target audience. This research have given us more idea for improvement of our concept.

More analysis data details can be found here: More details click here

User interview:

Interviewee

Due to our target user is both the people have interested to form their own business start-up and investor who want to make investment and get the return. All the interviewees are satisfied our target user requirement or they are fully experienced in this area in order to get useful feedback. We have interview some people with experienced in startup and also for the people who have dream to begin their own startup.

Interview process

At the beginning, the main problem we face is copyright issue which is throughout the whole process. The final outcome will in the conclusion section. In this round, the first interviewee is an engineering student which have interested in touch the startup but may lack experience in this area. The second interviewee is an experienced co-founder which has varsity experience in the startup.

Details can be found in the interview doucment in week8: https://github.com/deco3500-2017/teamhighfive/blob/master/Week%208%20Stand%20Up/User%20interview_Week%208.pdf

After the first interview, we have useful information. And enhance the prototype, redo the user research with the survey. The second round we interviewee more target user. It causes lots of times and finally, a startup company' marketing specialist agree to do the interview. The whole process is followed the last one, face to face and talk about our topic. In this time we reduce the yes or no question, let interviewee have more flexible answer.

Details can be found in the interview doucment in week12: https://github.com/deco3500-2017/teamhighfive/blob/master/Week%2012%20stand%20up/User%20interview%20document_week12.pdf

https://github.com/deco3500-2017/teamhighfive/blob/master/Week%2012%20stand%20up/User_interview_%26_testing.md

Conclusion

Most of the interviewee think this idea is great and they would try our product. The way to solved copyright issue is on both side, for the website builder and the idea owner.

The first side, Website need to have protected method. Verification is a good way to achieve. One of the interviews have mentioned that if anything happened, they can find the people who should be responsible for this problem, all the user need to register using their real IC. Cause it’s involved real business so it should be agreed for most people to achieve the real IC register. However, the user can choose to show their information or not. It’s protection for both Contributor and Investor. And user also can have more service if they willing to complete more personal information, it’s a way to encourage people to use real information. However, website admin should keep security and privacy for all the user. With those verification function, It will increase the feeling of security and user would use our product without worried anything.

Another side, user, ideas owner, should also take care for their own ideas. They should have their own way to protect the core ideas for their startup, especially for a professional start-up. It is also the reason that most of the interviewee don’t mind to post their ideas online. The marketing specialist, for a start-up company, has mentioned that many companies may have similar ideas but the important thing is to keep the core function security.

Next, there are lots of useful feedback. The first one is by IconX marketing specialist. Useful advice is added a like button to show how many people like this startup idea. As a viewer, they will search for the interested are and also will pay attention to the hot ideas. It like a post, if more people like, more people will take a look. As the idea's owner， he ideas will have more opportunity to achieve.

The feedback function and add trustworthiness credit function for the user is also useful. For example, the user can get credit by complete more information by verification. And the user with high credit will have more service on the website. It's another way to encourage people to complete the basic information and keep a safe platform for startup.

However, we will consider if the advice can really work or necessary in the product and the testing on the prototype.

Requirements:

Problem:

Many young entrepreneurs and students have brilliant business ideas that they wish to start. However, they lack the funds to start over or they are simply in need for a partnership with some other skill set. It has always been a challenge to find a platform dedicated to the needs of young entrepreneurs. Thus, this forms the rationale of the project; a dedicated business platform to allow people to form partnerships, discuss and form businesses.

Solution:

The project aims to fill in the gap between Indeed and BusinessPartners, that are primarily focused on employment and crowdfunding respectively. Thus, it is different from Indeed as it is not focused on employment but rather the initial startup phase of a business which includes forming partnerships, sharing and discussing confidential ideas under strict confidentiality.

Our project also differs from BusinessPartners as we do not rely on crowdfunding and employment but rather sharing idea by mutual agreement between two or more parties. The project will harness the power of social and mobile computing to achieve its aims. An online website will be established that provides its users with a directory search of user profiles, discussion forums, messenger, partnership formation.

Target Audience

Startup Entrepreneur/Business Owner:

Looking for Strategic Alliance: User would able to search for some individuals by skills area. If they are interested with some people found in the results, they could send them a message or leave a comment under their post.

Looking for Business Partner: User would able to make a post about their business and then wait for someone who like to join them to respond their post.

Looking for Investor: User would able to make a post about their business idea and then ask for investor to join them for further discussion by message.

Investor:

Investor would able to search for any business they interested by industry. If they are interested with the business idea, they could leave a comment or message the business owner/startup entrepreneur to seek for partnership.

Contributor:

Individual who seeking for job or partnership. User would able to search for any business related to their skills area in this platform. If they are interested with the business, they could leave a comment or message the business owner to seek for partnership or work opportunity.

Persona & Storyboard:

Persona 1 - Contributor

Background: Timothy is a 23-years-old young man from Brisbane. He is a third year university student, studying Bachelor of Information Technology at University of Queensland. Timothy enjoys a busy life for taking part in programming and game developing. He has a very busy schedule with university and also working on the weekends by tutoring. He wants his programming skills to be used for his future job.

Goals and Ambitions:

• Graduate from University
• Find a full time job after graduated
• Have his own team for game development

Persona 2 - Start-up Entrepreneur

Background: Adam is an engineer that just found a new job in Los Angel. He has 8 years working experience and moves to Los Angel in order to explore the better working space. Adam likes reading books in quiet space and do not enjoy diong outside sports, for exmple, climbing. He used to live in Scarborough, Northern England which is is a beautiful city. But he wants a Swift progress in his career. Adam loves to study more skills. Therefore he is working hard and sometimes starts up some new business.

Goals and Ambitions:

• Startup a new business in LA and found trustful partner
• Get a part time or full time job in new living place

Story board example 1:

1. Adam is looking for contributor or partner to join his business. He posted his new start up business on eBusiness website. Some contributors contacted him by leaving comment and inbox message.

2. Timothy is looking for job which related to his major skill. He search some business by his skill area on eBusiness website. He found Adam's business and willing to join his team.

3. Person B is looking for join a new start up business as busines partner. He found Adam's business idea on eBusiness website and very interested in. He contacted Adam by inbox message.

4. After further discussion, Adam, Timothy and Person B have formed a team for the business.

Prototype and user testing

paper prototype

After User search and interview we have collected lots of useful information to build our website. Paper prototyping is used low-fidelity prototyping method for designing and testing user interfaces as first which in future helps developers to create the website to meet the user goals, understand the user's expectation and what they want for our project. At this time, our primary function for the user is login/register, search people with skills/ start-up business, introduction for the website, User 's own profile and communication function. There will be a homepage with the beginning tutorial, teaching the user how to use this website and It's what users will see in the first time when they enter the website. The user can find the signup/register page in the navigation. And user needs to complete some verification in order to register successfully. The choice here is using the traditional navigation style. All the pages will have only one navigation. After user login in, they can use more service on this website, for example chatting function. Sign in page and login in the page all use common design. Therefore, the user will log in and register without any trouble.

In the chat page, it's like the message, simply display you're recently chatting and it will show that if the people are online or not. The skill search page and startup ideas search page have the similar layout display. It has the filter at first, then will show the list in order. And on the profile page, User can change their information, upload their IC photo, certification and select their skill tag. However, the user can only use those functions when their login successfully. Once they have the login, the login/register section will become profile section.

User testing for paper protoype

The details can be found in: https://github.com/deco3500-2017/teamhighfive/blob/master/Paper%20Prototype_User%20Testing.pdf

Problem found, Resolved, Conclusion

In response to user feedback, all the user is no problem for: our login/ sign up function, communication function. And most of the tester can use the search method quickly. The main problem is we need to improve the language for the navigation. Make it understandable. Then some tester has mentioned that if we can have the different section in the profile page will be better. Now lots of information on one page is may confuse the user. The plan is we will name the page(startup idea search page) as Discussion forums. Because this page is not just posting, everyone can leave their comments, like forums. Then we plan to add basic information section, the introduction section, friend list, and certification section. Separated the information by different users.

However, we will continue building the digital prototype basic on this and testing in the future.

Digital Prototype designing:

eBusiness provide a community-like platform consists functionality which allow users to share their ideas, find partners and investors to form partnerships to start business trip. Each user need to select their user category (Business owner, investor, contributor etc.) and also need to select occupations they want to participate in. These information will become users' tag and show in their user profile that will make other users search them easily. Moreover, every user has to upload their copy of identification to avoid fake or AI accounts exist. Business owners can publish their business idea in our website, and others can view business idea to decide join in or not base on their interests and business return. On the other side, users can search for the partners base on their requirement in 'Partner search' section. For example, Business owners can search contributors with certain occupation category to find suitable people and view their user profiles. And investor can search for their most interested business idea in this section to decide the most profitable project to invest. For further contact and communicate, they can direct message to the users by 'Inbox' function. In 'discussion forum' section, users can post out any topic of blogs, it can be look for recommendations to improve their idea or business, can be share their experience, also can be seek solution for problem they have met etc. Users can leave comments in each blog to present their understanding, thinking and recommendation which allow all users feel free to discuss. And users can click 'like' button if they are keen on blog's topic, the more times 'like' will attract more users to participate in and will lead to a much more positive results or experience for every users.

User testing for digital protoype

After this iteration, there is final usability testing. The main method is observation. The details can be found in week12 stands up: https://github.com/deco35002017/teamhighfive/blob/master/Week%2012%20stand%20up/Observation_Digital_Prototype_User%20Testing.pdf The outcome for this version is great. All the user reach the observation task goal.

Instruction to use:

Once again, here is the prototype's link

1. Users first need to create an account by filling in their personal information (some of information won't show to other users), also users need to identify themselves into several categories (Business owner, Contributor, Investor etc.) and select industries they interested. In final step users have to upload copy of their identification to be verified.

2. Click 'About page' will let users know what does our website's do.

3. In 'Partner Search' section, users can search their ideal partners by selecting key words. For example, IT Business owners will select 'IT', 'Contributor' or 'Investor' to find some employees with skills or receive his start-up capital from investor.

4. If they want to know more about such user, they can click 'More information' to view user profile or 'Chat' to have a directly message with each other.

5. In 'Discussion forum' section, users can click any topic they feel interested, and leave their comments or click the 'like' button if they love that blog. Also. every user is allowed to post out their content to share their knowledge and experience.

6. Last but not the least, user can modify their user profile at any time they want.

Website implementation process:

You are able to find our web prototype through the following link. Web Prototype webPrototype's link Promo Page  promoWeb's link

Our web-based prototype is mainly based on our Adobe XD digital prototype. In some features, the layout of page was slightly changed to fit the user habits. The whole project is a static website that have no database staff involved in case we only need a displayable prototype in this stage. The HTML and JavaScript was used in this implementation.

The implementation of Home page, About page, Partner Search page, Search Result page, Forum page, Forum Example page, Inbox page, Contact us page, My Profile page and Functional User Login pages is finished.

In the forum page, list of topic could be displayed. By using the search function, only part of the list will be shown.

By clicking on the topic, user will be redirect to the topic example page. The POST button is able to be clicked on to show another comment.

The Sign In button is able to log user in and redirect user to the index page. We used session to track the user’s login status. If user was signed in, the link of My Profile will replace the Login button in the top right corner.

In the profile page, the user is able to click on the Logout button to log out. They will never be able to get back this page unless they login again.

Team Workload Distribution:

Each member has been assigned for different tasks throughout the whole process of this project. A breakdown chart of the tasks that each member contributed time to each week can be found below:

Kaho Ha: Interview/Prototype/Testing/Documentation

Haoxiang Zheng: Website/Testing/Documentation

Yaxin Cui: Interview/ Usability Testing/Documentation/Promotional Materials

Hui Ee Chua: Interview/Testing/Research/Documentation/Promotional Materials

Mehroz Abbasi: Concept/Promotional Materials/Documentation

Task	Week 7	Week 8	Week 9	Week 10	Week 11	Week 12	Week 13
Concept & User Research	Mehroz, Hui Ee		Hui Ee
Prototype	Kaho	Kaho	Kaho	Kaho	Kaho
Content creation	Kaho, Hui Ee		Kaho, Hui Ee	Kaho, Hui Ee		Kaho, Hui Ee
Documentation	Mehroz, Kaho, Hui Ee,Haoxiang		Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee	Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee, Haoxiang		Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee, Haoxiang	Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee, Haoxiang
User testing	Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee		Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee		Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee
User interview	Kaho, Yaxin, Hui Ee		Yaxin, Hui Ee	Yaxin	Yaxin, Hui Ee	Yaxin
Website implementation			Haoxiang	Haoxiang	Haoxiang	Hui Ee, Haoxiang	Haoxiang, Hui Ee
Promotional Materials					Mehroz	Hui Ee	Hui Ee, Yaxin

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