incorporate drawing into a busy routine

THE TASK

Assigned with the task of creating a wellness app from scratch, the main goal was to have an application where users could have a profile page, set their goals, and track their progress, as well as be able to edit, share or delete their personal data.

With this in mind, my team chose to create a drawing learning app.

To gain a better understanding of not only why people draw, but also why they might avoid it, we used secondary research. We were surprised by a high number of people who don’t draw, but did when they were kids, however stopped doing it in adulthood because they became afraid of failure.

Additionally, two key insights of our secondary research were that many people get stuck at a certain level, not knowing how they can improve at drawing, and that they struggle finding consistency in their practice due to busy routines.

Moreover, we had the chance to conduct some primary research by talking directly to different people who draw, whether that’s professionally or as a hobby, and they gave us valuable information for building our future app.

UNDERSTANDING THE LANDSCAPE

PRIMARY RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Although art school can be expensive, people don’t need a lot to start drawing:
a pen and a sheet of paper will suffice to get started.

Harsh criticism, especially from mentors, is highly demotivating.

Many people who take up drawing are part of a fandom.

“Everyone has a thousand shitty drawings, get them out so that the good ones start showing up”

— Pedro, Brazil, game designer

competitor analysis

Because we decided to have third-party instructors, our main competitors that shared the same principle were Masterclass, Skillshare, and Domestika.

The common traits between there 3 platforms are:
- Community feature where people can discuss about the class-
- Classes split into different lessons
- All of them enable the user to see what those are before subscribing and/or taking the class.

Whereas their unique points are:
- Masterclass: Not limited to creatives (they offer for instance a course on intelligence with former CIA officers
- Skillshare: Offers the option to buy 1-on-1 sessions with instructors
- Domestika: Only platform which, other than subtitles, offers the audio in multiple languages.

From those, we decided to incorporate the following features into our app:

- Community — allows for users to interact with each other based on mutual interests (e.g. being in the same fandom) and give each other feedback and suggestions
- Option to buy 1-on-1 sessions with instructors — in-depth feedback and/or tips
- Classes split into different lessons.

user persona - meet maria

“My friends are different. They’re definitely gonna give me the look if I say I am practicing Anime drawings.”

  • Hates harsh criticism

  • Fears her interests may be considered childish

  • Doesn’t know likeminded people

  • Struggles with staying consistent due to full-time job

PAIN POINTS

  • Finding an inspiring hobby

  • Interacting with like-minded people

  • Exploring her creativity

  • Creating things at her own pace

GOALS

  • Being economical with time due to busy schedule

  • Not spending a lot of money

  • Having fun throughout the process

  • Motivation to stay consistent

NEEDS

Since our target group consisted of primarily working adults, we came up with Maria, a big fan of both Harry Potter and Anime, who is 30 years old and works full time as a web developer.

We imagined a potential user journey for Maria would start with her feeling uninspired at work, wishing for a creative activity she could incorporate into her routine, and then ending the day with her going to bed feeling frustrated because she has tried practicing drawing again, but she feels lost and doesn’t know how to move forward.

We used a picture of a cat to avoid profiling, but the image was still suitable to represent the personality of our persona.

Thus, our main goals as designers were to create a platform where drawing enthusiasts could practice and improve their skills in a fun, lightweight manner, without having to invest too much time or money in it, whilst still staying motivated to practice consistently.

PROBLEM
STATEMENT

BUSY DRAWING ENTHUSIASTS NEED A TOOL TO HELP SHAPE THEIR LEARNING PROCESS AND PRACTICE CONSISTENTLY, BECAUSE THEY LACK GUIDANCE AND FEEL OVERWHELMED BY THE AMOUNT OF UNFILTERED LEARNING CONTENT AVAILABLE ONLINE.

ideation results

For our ideation process, we used the ‘Crazy 8s’, as well as the MoSCoW method.

In the end, we stuck to the ‘Must’ and the ‘Won’t Haves’, since there was a time constraint.

- Courses (step by step)
- Short video lessons
- Project submission and revision
- Progress tracking
- Reminders/push notifications
- User’s list of interests and preferences regarding drawing for course suggestions
- Different subscription methods

MUST HAVE

- Elaborate social media features (friends list, a lot of personal info, chat function)
- Job-oriented courses (architecture prep, industrial design, etc.)
- Failure system (if you fail, you lose)
- Direct grades (3 out of 5 or 6 out of 10, only feedback)

won't HAVE

Additionally, we chose the name SketchUp so that it would be a mix between ‘sketching’ and ‘ketchup’, to make it wittier and have a funny tone to it, but without sounding too childish.

USER FLOW

Since the main task a user could perform in our app would be to submit a project so that they could get feedback from their instructor, the user flow we chose to present starts with the user on the start/login page.

From there, they can either go through the app’s onboard process (where they are supposed to set their goals, as well as select their interests from a list — include screen of list) or start directly from the overview page.

Then, they can either go to their own profile page, or to their course overview page. For the user flow to continue, we will assume the user goes to the overview page.

From that point, they can select a lesson, and from the lesson screen they can click the button ‘submit project’, which redirects them to the upload page, where they can either take a picture or upload a file from their library.

Because we knew a lot of people who draw are part of a fandom, and those fandoms include, many times, published comic books (such as Marvel, Justice League, etc.), we chose to go for a comic book look. We wanted bright, contrasting colors, but nothing that could potentially cause our users eye strain.

We knew we were heading in the right direction when most users picked the words ‘fun’, ‘artistic’, ‘creating’ and ‘encouraging’ to describe the overall vibe of our moodboard during our test phase.

moodboard & testing

usability testing results & learnings

Once the design and the prototype were done, it was time we conducted a usability test, so we selected users from our circle to interact with our prototype and share their thoughts.

Though most of them were designers too, they did not know our app or what its goal was, so they were able to provide in-depth feedback on the usability of our application like regular users would.

The feedback we got on the usability of Sketch Up were:

POSITIVE

- Consistent, nice comic style
- Nice selection and use of colors
- Professional-looking interface
- Engaging visuals
- Convincing flow

- Users would not assume the overview page is scrollable because it ends perfectly with a button — we were not able to incorporate in time
- Call to action → username should be more obviously clickable on overview page — was incorporated
- Displaying what a premium membership includes — we were not able to incorporate in time
- Lesson timeline: could have numeration — we were not able to incorporate in time

negative

Click here to access the hi-fi prototype.

CONCLUSION

Through this project, we gained valuable experience in advanced Figma prototyping techniques, such as overlay sequences, Booleans, and component variants, which enhanced our ability to create dynamic and interactive prototypes.

If we had more time, we would have expanded the app’s functionality by incorporating an AR feature that allows users to draw on top of photos using their camera and a 3D lighting simulator for shading 3D objects — both offered as premium features behind a paywall.

This project also underscored the complexity and time-intensive nature of developing an application from the ground up. It reinforced the importance of the foundational stages, such as empathizing with users and defining their needs, which are as critical as the app’s visual design and usability.