Minor Project

27.9.2024 - 10.1.2025 (Week 1 - Week 16)
Elysa Wee Qi En / 0355060 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Minor Project

LECTURES

Week 3 / Data-gathering

• When doing interviews, do as many as you can manage
• Best to do face-to-face, so you can observe their body language
• When doing surveys, aim for 80 but send out 160
• First, write the questions and arrange the format in Google Docs etc. instead of jumping right into Google Forms etc. 
• When doing mixed method, you can use the interview questions to fill in the gaps that were left during the survey questions

User persona: 

• First understand the users and their needs 
• Acts as a point of reference throughout the project to keep you in line
• Helps build empathy
• Helps answer:
• Who are my target users?
• What issues are they facing?
• What do they need? etc.
• Useful to develop something useful and valuable for the users and consumers
• Helpful for communication in a multidisciplinary team 
• Everyone can understand them, not just designers
• Just start with 3

Steps:

1. Conduct research
2. Add a heading 
• Name
• Image
• Summary/quote of their wants/needs
3. Add a demographic profile
• Personal background
• Age
• Status
• Education
• Family status
• Professional background
• Occupation
• Income
• User environment
• What type of technological devices do they use?
• How often do they collaborate with others?
• What type of society do they live in?
• Psychographic
• Likes and dislikes
• Pain-points
• Add a user's end-goals
• Write about what they want to achieve
4. Write a scenario
• That describes the problem and possible solutions
• The when, where, how it takes place

Week 6 / Themes and Insights 

Insights = The revelations hidden in plain sight

E.g. Snickers, who made their selling point about 'curing hunger' instead of just being a simple snack

Themes = Features created that are the results of the users' wants or needs

INSTRUCTIONS

Fig. 1. Module Information Booklet

Minor Project - Xboard

For minor project, my group and I decided to take on Expedio's task, which was to create a logo, tagline, marketing campaign etc. for their product, the Xboard. Our group consisted of two UI/UX students, two Entertainment Design students, two Animation students and one Immersive Design student (which was me). With all that, our team seemed pretty balanced and had a wide range of knowledge. In the end, we felt that this task would suit our specialities and we'd be able to get it done.

In the group I sort of took on the role of secretary - I took notes when receiving feedback from our lecturer and during meetings with the clients. 

Week 1 - 3

We were scheduled to have a meeting with a client on the 9th of October (week 3), so for the first two weeks we planned out some questions that we wanted to ask them to get a better idea of the project and the direction we needed to go in.

Week 4 - 5

For these weeks, we focused on creating questions for our data-collection survey. 

After we had settled on the questions and fixed them according to feedback from our lecturer, I helped input all the questions into a Google Form to be sent out as a survey.

Fig. 2.1. The editor's view of our survey form (10/1/2025)

Week 6

This week, we focused on extracting and compiling the data from the survey responses. We managed to get a total of 91 responses, so we had a lot of data to work with. I helped compile the data from the written answers. 

Week 7

We had another meeting with the client on the 15th of November, to show them our proposal and progress & ideas so far. 

Week 8 

This week was independent learning week, so we didn't have any classes.

Week 9 - 11

For these weeks, our focus was on creating our Customer Journey Map. Honestly, this was a challenge for us, as it seemed that we just couldn't get a grasp on how to perfect it for a while. However, we realised that it was because we simply weren't clear on our direction. We shifted our focus to creating the brand story, brand values, positioning statement and other important things to consider. After this, we finally managed to fix our implementation plan to be more specific to the product, client, and goal.

I was a part of the 'marketing team' with my groupmates Zi Qi and Akif, and we were in charge of the social media posts (dark blue sticky notes) and the activities (pink sticky notes). I also helped out in planning for the blogposts (turquoise sticky notes) and the emails (light blue sticky notes). Additionally, we also included planning regarding the packaging (purple sticky note).

Fig. 2.2. Our implementation plan (10/1/2025)

We also learnt that our blog content really has to be engaging in order to attract people to sign up and read them. For that, we had to learn to put ourselves in our audiences' shoes and think of what kind of content we would sign up to see.

Week 12

After we settled the Customer Journey Map, we created an art direction board so that we would all be on the same page on what the designs should look like. This was useful for all of us, whether we were in charge of creating the social media posts, posters, videos, the website prototype, the blog and email layouts etc.

Fig. 2.3. Our art direction board (10/1/2025)

Week 13 - 16

After receiving feedback to first create a key visual to further set the design direction in stone, we basically had to get to get to work to create all of the things detailed in our implementation plan. There wouldn't really be any classes after week 13, so thankfully we managed to finish what we needed to so far and understand where to go from there.

One of the tasks that I was assigned to was animating the logo that Shasha and Ilhan made. I used Hitfilm to do this. I made a simple yet sleek animation, using masking to make the text appear like it was being written out.

Fig. 2.4. Animating the Xboard logo (1/1/2025)

Another one of my tasks was to create the Informative promo video. I also used Hitfilm to edit this. The marketing team had brainstormed previously to create a video in a similar style to the brand Apple's promotional videos. I achieved this by using mostly black and white backgrounds and text, especially since that is essentially part of our colour scheme anyway. I also followed the aesthetic that was used in the key visuals and posters with the circles.

Fig. 2.5. Editing the Informative Promotional Video (10/1/2025)

Finally, I animated one of the static posters. This was to make the poster more interesting when posting it on video-focused social medias like TikTok. Zi Qi made the poster in Adobe Illustrator, so I used After Effects to animate it. The animation is relatively simple, simply having the elements float around to create visual interest.

Fig. 2.6. Animating one of the posters (6/1/2025)

FINAL Minor Project submissions

Fig. 3. Group 3: Xboard - Final Submissions (10/1/2025)

FEEDBACK

Week 2
General Feedback:
- Prepared questions to ask the client for the meeting
- Planned the meeting time
Specific Feedback:
- Prepare questions to ask the client first, don't already start finding problems and making solutions 
- The client is never really sure what they want, so prepare good questions to be clear
- Prepared questions and showed them to the lecturer, editing them according to his feedback

Week 3
General Feedback:
- Had a meeting with the client to discuss the product and the requirements of the project

Week 4 
Specific Feedback:
- Showed lecturer the planned survey questions and received feedback to edit them
- Finalised questions with feedback and put it into a Google Form
- Sent out the form to begin receiving responses 

Week 7
General Feedback:
- Had meeting with client to present our proposal and current progress/ ideas
- Expedio intends to release the boards in different sizes
    - To cater to a larger group of customers
- All groups' submissions are separate, this is not a competition
Specific Feedback:
- They like the design direction
- They like the cork base idea
- Moodboard for website:
    - Wording is stylish and well arranged + presented
    - Font is not consistent cuz some are serif and some are sans serif
    - Would prefer more consistent fonts

Week 9
Specific Feedback:

- Put everything in the Journey Map in the Miro board 

- Don't make the client waste money, most things you put out should be a hit and not a miss

- Plan out a marketing timeline for the customer journey map, like what you expect the return to be during the time frame (e.g. 1 month) (reference the example on the Miro board lol) 

- List down the social media that you want to market on and then everyone choose an app to analyse (what you're familiar with)

- Look at references about how the awareness impacts us from other brands 

- If no experience, look at case studies 

- Introduction is not hard selling, just teasing 

- How often do they rinse and repeat during that 1 month? 

- Decide your number of posts based on your own experience and limits 

Week 10
Specific Feedback:
- Your implementation plan is not convincing in meeting the How Might We intentions. This plan will not answer all of the How Might We questions conclusively. You need to improve. Take a look at your seniors’ final work, on how they ensure that their HMWs are conclusively answered.
- Implementation plan is the amount, frequency, types of communication/content u are planning to orchestrate into a practical schedule of release, in order to achieve or meet the various stages’ outcomes/user needs. Refer to the seniors’ final presentation on how they planned it & u can get a real sense of the practicality & effectiveness of their plans. They always linked it back to answering the HMWs conclusively.

Week 11
Specific Feedback:
Before Changes
- Sticky notes have more thought to make the plan practical, is better
- Points 3 & 4 requested by the client was not found in the stickies
- Some HMWs are a bit generic though but it's ok (I think)
- Ask yourself, do your clients suddenly realise that they need this new whiteboard? Are they even modern teams?
- According to the points, Expedio is saying that our target audience is not aware on how to collaborate. That's why blogging is needed, to show and tell them that they need this product
- Write headlines and captions for the blog only (rest can be Lorem Ipsum) that create awareness among the target audience. Need pictures though to show the format
- For email marketing, create a list of emails that is strategically and periodically released to them
- Create separate emails for the different target audiences listed
- Again, headlines and captions only for emails, rest can be dummy text
- Make the customers realise that they have a need in the first place before you hard sell
After changes
- Blog posts need to be more engaging to get people to give their emails
- During advertising stage we aren't revealing everything, so we use that to tease them and make them give emails

Week 12
Specific Feedback:
- Art direction board must be there in Miro board
- Everything within our proposal presentation slides must be rationalized (e.g. why we chose the typefaces? Why did we choose the color palettes? Graphic elements must be created, why did we decide to make this logo with this design?)
- Brand values must be in the art direction board to give clearer directions
- Have keywords and from there, rationalize everything
- Include visual style as well

Week 13 
Specific Feedback:
- Create logo and brand for X-Board, not Expedio
- Font size is off on the second page of Figma prototype
- Footer is lacking
- Need more consistency (lines, graphics etc.)
- No time for showing it to him anymore
- Just make sure the sketches follow the art direction
- Draft the main poster (?) to settle and lock down the art direction
- Create the key visual to be compared against for every other post 

REFLECTIONS

Experience
This module was full of ups and downs. At times, our group felt like we knew exactly where to go and what to do, but at other times it was the complete opposite. At the end of the day, this was meant to emulate a real experience out there in the working world and give us a taste of what it was like to work in a design team. I feel like all the things I learnt and exprerience I gained will be of use in the future, as how to work as a team and how to communicate are important lessons that I will need in many cases, not just in my design work. Overall, this module was a beneficial learning experience no matter how stressful, and I hope to carry what I've gained from it with me into the future.

Observations
Communication is very important in a team. Although it sounds like common knowledge, I got to experience it in this module too. There were moments where communication wasn't clear and some people were unsure what they needed to do, or if they needed to do anything at all. I learnt that it's good to check up on your teammates once in a while to make sure work is in progress and on track. 

Findings
I found that it can be important to start with knowing the end goal before starting on the journey. By that I mean, it's good to know the reason we want to do something before starting to do it. That way, we have a clearer picture on what direction we need to go in and what we need to do to achieve that goal, since we know what the goal is in the first place. Understanding 'why' can be really helpful in understanding 'how' and 'what'.