York Lions Intranet
My Role: Design and market research, prototyping, UI/UX Design
Materials Used: Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator
Year: 2021 - Present
Project Type:
About the Project
SilkScarf is a black haircare mobile app that provides a mapping of both hair salons and home-based mobile stylists using location-based data. Such a product would connect customers to stylists who specialize in black hair, effectively solving the issue of access to black hair salons for black women in various black diaspora communities. Because this app intends to serve a two-sided market (hairstylists), such a product may generate a stronger sense of community and economic agency for its users and may also reconcile feelings of displacement, and unease especially for black women abroad in communities with sparser black demographics.
The Problem
The challenge: York University Athletics & Recreation has a number of teams that use the York Lions mark and name on social media (110+). There are also a number of staff members looking for branded office templates and our York Lions lock-up logo. We needed to create a way to provide branded templated resources (social media) to York Lions social media leads for, Varsity teams, Sport Club, Intramurals, fitness and lifestyle as well as staff members. We needed to find a way to host these assets within the confines of our site yorkulions.ca hosted on the Sidearm Sports. Sidearm Sports is North America’s most widely used collegiate sport site web host so working within the confines of this specific website architecture while bringing a user friendly experience was a challenge.
Define
As a black woman, this app is targeted towards women of my demographic (20-something, entry-level to mid-level workers, with frequent social media usage). When gathering insight on potential users, I first started with my own lived experience. The idea for this project came from the frustration I have encountered when dealing with my own hair and witnessing the frustrations of others close to me. I thought of the pain points I had (i.e. cost, money, expertise) and I made an educated guess that the best way to resolve these issues would be through the implementation of a mobile app that utilizes location data. To validate these initial assumptions, I engaged in three forms of research: analyzing news pieces, analyzing scholarly articles and analyzing the habits of my assumed target market via secondary research.
Ideation
The project is currently a high-fidelity prototype with plans for further development. The final version of this prototype features a bright colour scheme with matching illustrations for an overall cohesive feel. The bottom navigation includes chat, search, notification, and personal profile features. Visual refinement, breadth of functionality, depth of functionality, richness of interactivity were all of top priority when creating this project.