Product Design • Project Manager (December 2020)
I created The Love Visa, a collaborative database to help couples couples separated by coronavirus-related travel bans reunite by helping them navigate through success stories that match their individual situation.
The pandemic has geographically separated partners around the globe. I spent four weeks to create a human-centered design project with user research as I interacted with the community to best identify and serve their needs. I guided the product development roadmap, prototyped, designed and coded the site and conducted short-cycle iterations. Then, I collected and published stories while leading an audience-centric strategy. Throughout this project, I upped my design skills, heightened my abilities in coding and strengthened my understanding of how to best serve a community through listening and receiving feedback.
Identify the problem
Shut down borders. More than 40,000 couples.
Identify the community and need: The community is already gathering on Facebook groups and shares information on loopholes that allow couples to reunite. I talked to a range of users of these Facebook groups, which allowed me to identify that couples struggle to find success stories that would match their own situation. I discussed my findings with three admins of the Facebook groups. They helped me refine the couples' needs and suggested tools that would serve the community.
By offering...........
"Find a quote?"
Speak the community's language
The website has to be aligned with the community's language. It should be benevolent and warm. It should also be straightforward and accessible to people worldwide — even when English is not their first language.
Building a tool
Content is based on the people's experience. There will be two features: a search tool and a submission form.
Homepage
Search page
Success stories gallery
Success story sample
Submission
Thank you
Design and code
Designed on Wix
coded with HTML
Form
Questions based on needs suggested by users
SEO component:
echo questions typed on Google
based on interviews
User Testing and feedback
3 leaders in the community
5 potential users
1 UX designer
Once I created and published the website, I sent it out to the admins for them to try it. Following their feedback, I added questions to the form and enhanced the UX.
I reached out to a few individuals who had posted their successful experience on Facebook and asked them to try the tool, to give feedback and to populate the site with first stories.
Call to Action
Target specific communities: after having received a decent amount of stories I started targeting countries that were missing in the data-base. To do so, I integrated nation-scale Facebook groups — with a smaller reach but a more specific localization.
A crowd-sourced project
I started receiving success stories through the form on the dedicated page of the website. The form is linked to an internal database that allows to collect and to publish success stories almost automatically.
form linked to an internal database
Rewarding the community
I created a dedicated email address and set up a templated email in order to thank every couple who submitted their story to the site.
Visibility through partners
The website of the movement "Love Is Not Tourism" and a user who launched a petition added a link to my tool on their site. Some users also genuinely decided to promote the tool on their platforms. The Love Visa also had a cameo on Today - NBC.
Impact
I keep on receiving emails...
123 stories collected
4,900 unique visitors
63 countries
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