The responsive website for a freelance developer specializing in 1C-Bitrix and Symfony (professional cases since 2008).
Role:
concept, research, design
Tools:
Figma, PS, AI
Duration:
3 months
Problem
There is a prejudice in the Internet solutions market that private developers are not able to create high-quality products and compete with agencies and companies offering similar services.
Goal
To create an image of a reliable business partner in the person of Natalia Borisova, highlighting the experience of her private expertise as a profitable advantage.
Research
During the research, I interviewed a group of people from small and medium-sized businesses (managers who have ever made a decision on choosing IT contractors in their company). The main questions related to the attitude towards freelancers and freelance groups, as well as the criteria for the selection of personnel for project work.
Risks of choosing a freelance developer
On average, out of the total number of respondents.
62% fear lack of experience in large projects.
17% worry about legal issues.
43% believe that freelancers offer fewer services.
Key pain points
1
People want to clearly understand the sequential order of all work.
2
Those who make the choice of a contractor, his experience is very important.
3
Users are looking for confirmation of the contractor's competence.
4
Some are afraid of single freelancers because of the threat of deadlines.
Age
40
Education
Master's degree
Location
St. Petersburg, Russia
Family
Married
Occupation
Head of sales
Typical User Persona: Mark
«My dream is to learn to immediately see the hidden potential of people.»
Mark works as a manager in a small industrial company in St. Petersburg. In addition to his direct duties related to sales growth, he often deals with various issues of recruiting freelance contractors to work on internal Internet projects. Mark is interested in psychology and financial planning.
Goals
- To develop skills in the field of IT projects.
- To assemble a team of experienced IT experts to form a department within the company.
Frustrations
- Difficulties in assessing the competence of the contractor.
- It's hard to take responsibility for the choice.
Wireframes
As part of the design sprint, I developed several key concepts for Natalia's positioning in the market. After testing and analyzing the feedback from the customer, the idea was approved, which is based on professional photographs taken in the studio in different situations and angles. We decided to focus on expertise mainly, but it was critically important to show that Natalia is a woman and a person (any expert is primarily a human being).
60
paper and digital wireframes in total
Images to emphasize
I tried to combine human and professional qualities profitably.
image of an expert (60%)
personality image (25%)
image of a woman (15%)
Prototypes
I have prepared a photo shoot script for Natalia (poses, angles, entourage, etc.), we have selected the most suitable pictures from hundreds of photos. After that, we started testing ready-made clickable prototypes in order to get conclusions as close to reality as possible.
lofi
hifi
The first stages of testing revealed a number of difficulties blocking the user's positive contact with the website. This was partly due to the lack of 100% ready-made texts. We finalized the text part together with a marketer and a copywriter, after which a second test was successfully conducted.
Usability study: findings
These are the key results of the usability study.
1
Often testing once is not enough to understand the problem.
2
Sometimes it is critically important to test layouts with ready-made up-to-date texts.
3
The appearance of some elements in layouts for tablets and phones should be simpler.
4
A personal website should show a freelancer as a multi-faceted personality.
Mockups
The ability to make significant edits at any stage of the project to improve the user experience allowed me to polish all the layouts (both desktop and mobile/tablet ones) and finalize them eventually to the most optimal state.
The main page (fragment 1).
The main page (fragment 2).
The main page (fragment 3).
"About me" page.
Cases page,
Layouts for tablets and phones (fragments).
Conclusions
When making a personal website for a freelance contractor, it's important not to forget that each expert is primarily a person and a personality. Despite the fact that the era of artificial intelligence development is outside the window, people continue to communicate with another people and it's necessary for them to see and feel the emotions of their interlocutor.
a Quote from user feedback
Perhaps I could entrust any budget to such a freelancer!