Role
October, 2022 - Present
Timeline
Individual
Tool
Product Designer
Caoyang Shen
Figma, Miro
Background
Startup owners and new workforce entrants lack guidance from experienced professionals, and experienced professionals want to earn more money.
Yet, no platform connects these groups, leaving reliance on platforms like LinkedIn, where messages often go unanswered.
Pain point: connecting with AI experts is so hard.
Design Challenge
How might users on SylphAI find their target experts to consult easily?
Design Solutions
Consulting platform end-to-end solutions
🌟We utilize italic bold to prompt users about any modifications made to the time and price.
🌟Clients can propose a new time or new price when booking.
What our users say?
“We are a startup working on an AI copilot for hardware. It is easy to connect with experts like Daniel. Daniel's expertise and experience helped us in getting a deeper understanding of LLMs for our product roadmap, and I’m looking forward to talking to him again.”
“SylphAI swiftly matched us with an on-demand ML engineer, expediting our projects while allowing us to focus on other business priorities. Their seamless process and well-suited matches have made collaboration effortless and highly productive.”
Research·Storyboard
Research·Comparators Analysis
As expert consulting involves aspects such as search functionality, task management, and booking, I drew inspiration from three similar platforms - Adplist, Officerhours, and Calendly - to create my design mood board.
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👍Advantages:
Sufficient expert selections.
Features enabling users to interact with the experts.
Brief but important information about each expert.
👎Potential improvement:
Limited space for future filters.
Mentors may not know the topics that will be discussed and find it hard to prepare well for them.
👍Advantages:
The dashboard enables users to finish tasks without too many clicks and loading.
The search organization is understandable and sorted.
👎Potential improvement:
When a project is big, users may have several sub-projects to consult. This platform cannot support it.
The information architecture is a little confusing.
👍Advantages:
It boasts an exceptionally sophisticated booking system that seamlessly handles time zones and meeting briefs.
Calendly offers customizable options and settings, empowering users to tailor the booking experience to their specific needs.
👎Potential improvement:
The features offered by Calendly are only one component of our consulting ecosystem. It does not offer the option for individuals to propose their preferred time slots. Additionally, there is no built-in feature for conducting a basic text-format conversation between both parties.
Integrate relevant functions from other platforms to create our workflow
Design·User Flow
While the user flow for booking meetings with experts is common, our product offers a unique feature that allows experts to sell themselves, which adds complexity to the design.
Our user flow not only aids designers in comprehending the flow but also assists UI developers in understanding the logic behind it.
Design·Wireframe
Our wireframe made several improvements based on the mood board. Users will have a better user experience here.
Unlike Office Hours, our dashboard doesn't have many hierarchies. Instead, users can easily search for experts by clicking on the task card, which is intuitive.
To maximize space, we reduced the size of mentor avatars, allowing us to display more information on one list and include more lists on a single page.
Additionally, on the booking page, we not only offer calendar functions but also allow users to write notes for their experts.
Q&A after Heuristic Evaluation
01. Do we make our labels align with the data set and users’ understanding?
02. Do we give way for experts to interact with clients initially?
Answer:
After identifying the issues, we communicated with the developers to comprehend their data structure. Based on this new understanding, we revised the tab labels to ensure user-friendly comprehension and facilitate development.
Answer:
At SylphAI, we strive to maintain a professional platform that prioritizes the importance of reputation. While we understand that some users may feel uncomfortable interacting with strangers, we believe that facilitating communication within industries is critical to our mission. As such, we enable users to engage in early-stage chat interactions, a feature that distinguishes us from platforms such as Linkedin, where communication is typically limited to paid email interactions.
Design·Hi-Fi Design
01/ Efficient filter to find the best-fit consultant.
02/ Propose a new price and select availability
03/ Meeting Space
Combine the side filter and top filter for an enhanced consultant search experience.
ProTip offers users insight into the affordance at this stage, such as the opportunity to chat with engaging consultants.
To optimize the search for a specific item, the side filter presents a comprehensive list of all available options, including relevant information in the consultant cards. Meanwhile, the top filter aids users in refining their search based on specific consultant status.
Clients may make their offer when the price is not ideal for their budget or expectation.
Component reminder enhances price awareness and interface harmony.
Based on client feedback, many engineers quote prices beyond the client's budget, while uncertainty remains regarding consultant qualifications. Incorporating a popular e-commerce feature, price negotiation can significantly enhance client engagement.
Provide clients with a convenient shortcut for quick access to their active meetings.
Labels assist clients in tracking the status of their meetings effectively.
To address client concerns regarding missed meetings, particularly in situations where the email ecosystem is not mature, we have introduced a shortcut in the task dashboard. Users have the option to view meetings in either task mode or calendar mode. The calendar mode provides a convenient overview of their monthly meetings at a glance.
04/ Meeting Details
Increase information density with a single-page display.
Enable clients to add meetings to their calendars.
We provide clear navigation options for users to easily access related actions such as joining the meeting and integrating their calendars. Moreover, users can conveniently access their bills on the meeting page to gain valuable insights into the meeting's value.
Reflection
01. A continuous improvement mindset in product design
Product design is a complex process that requires a combination of creativity, technical skills, and problem-solving abilities. It's not possible to get everything right the first time, and even the best designs can always be improved. With the business development and designers’ own growth, we can reach out to more resources to help perfect our design. For example, we now mainly rely on secondary research to conduct design. However, additional time can allow designers to spend more time researching and exploring different solutions, while additional funding can provide the resources needed to conduct user testing and refine the product further.
02. Design is beyond user experience
As a product designer, my focus extends beyond improving and optimizing user experience to include considering the constraints and budgets faced by developers. Addressing user complaints within a limited budget and a small developer team at a startup can be challenging. However, this presents an opportunity for exceptional designers to stand out from their peers.
