Minor Project PRJ62204
Minor Project PRJ62204
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
1. Introduction
This reflective journal records my experience throughout the Minor Project, from the first research stage to the final presentation. Our project focused on B40 women entrepreneurs in Malaysia, especially street vendors and women who run home-based online businesses. Many of these small sellers manage their businesses by themselves and still depend on handwritten notes, memory, calculators, or several different mobile applications. Our aim was to understand their real difficulties and design a simple digital solution that could support their daily work.
At the beginning, I thought this project would mainly be about designing attractive application screens. However, I gradually understood that design should not begin with colours or layouts. It should begin with people, evidence and a clearly defined problem. The final outcome of our project was PocketBiz, a smart business notebook that brings sales, orders, products, inventory, customers, expenses, reports and notes into one system.
This was a group project, but this journal focuses on my personal experience, contribution and learning. My work included research into home-based online businesses, contributing ideas during the definition and ideation stages, helping to develop the presentation and supporting the design and evaluation of PocketBiz.
2. Understanding the Project and Contextual Research
Our first task was to understand the background of B40 women entrepreneurs. We researched the meaning of the B40 income group and the situation of small sellers in Malaysia. We found that many micro-businesses operate informally and have limited access to professional financial tools. Their businesses are often small, self-managed and closely connected to family life. This means that even a simple task, such as recording an order or checking daily profit, can become difficult when the owner is busy.
The team divided the research into two target groups: street vendors and home-based online businesses. I focused mainly on the online business group. I considered how sellers receive orders through platforms such as WhatsApp or social media, how they record customer information and how they track payments, stock and delivery. Preparing the target group criteria and interview questions helped me see that we needed to ask about real behaviour instead of asking only what features users wanted.
One challenge at this stage was that the topic was very broad. There were many possible problems, including marketing, payment, inventory, delivery and customer communication. I learned that contextual research is useful because it gives the team a shared starting point, but it cannot replace direct contact with users.
3. User Interviews and Key Findings
After the background research, we conducted interviews with street vendors and home-based online business owners. We asked how they managed orders, customers, stock, expenses and income. We also asked what tools they currently used and which parts of their daily work caused the most stress. The interviews gave us much more specific information than the desk research.
After each interview, we highlighted useful statements and transferred the findings onto digital sticky notes. We then grouped similar answers to identify repeated patterns. Many participants used a combination of notebooks, calculators, WhatsApp messages and memory. Information was spread across different places, so it was easy to forget an order, lose a customer record or misunderstand whether the business had made a profit.
This stage was time-consuming because the interview data was large and not every answer was directly useful. At first, I found it difficult to decide which comments were important. Through discussion with my teammates, I learned to look for repeated behaviours, needs and frustrations instead of choosing information based only on my personal opinion. I also learned that user research is not simply collecting answers; the important part is interpreting the answers carefully.
4. Defining the Design Problem
Using the interview findings, we refined our problem statement. We recognised that the main issue was not a lack of effort from the sellers. The problem was that their business information was scattered and difficult to manage. Home-based online sellers needed a simple way to record orders, customer details, sales and expenses, while street vendors needed a quick method that would not interrupt their work.
We created user personas to represent the two main user groups. Each persona included goals, frustrations, behaviours and needs. We also developed journey maps to show the steps users took during their business activities and to identify pain points and opportunities. These tools helped me understand the users as people with different routines instead of treating them as a general group of 'small business owners'.
We then wrote How Might We questions to change the research problems into design opportunities. This was an important transition because it moved us from analysing difficulties to thinking about possible solutions. I realised that a good problem statement should be focused enough to guide the design but open enough to allow different ideas.
5. Midterm Presentation: From Research to Design Direction
The midterm presentation took place before we started designing the application. At that time, our work mainly consisted of contextual research, interview findings, problem statements, personas and journey maps. We used an early version of the same presentation file that we later used for the final presentation.
Preparing for the midterm presentation helped us review whether the story of our research was clear. We needed to explain the connection between the B40 context, the interview evidence and the problem we wanted to solve. I learned that having a large amount of research is not enough; the information needs to be selected and organised so the audience can understand why the project matters.
6. Ideation and Final Concept
After the midterm presentation, we began generating possible solutions. We used a mind map to explore different directions and completed Crazy 8 activities individually. This method encouraged each group member to produce several ideas quickly without spending too much time making them look perfect. We also used SCAMPER to consider how existing tools and processes could be combined, simplified or improved.
The team compared the ideas using a concept evaluation matrix. We considered how well each idea answered the user needs, how easy it would be to understand and whether it was realistic to develop during the project. From this process, we selected the idea of a simple mobile business-management application.
The application was named PocketBiz. Its purpose was to act like a smart business notebook for small sellers. Instead of using many disconnected tools, users could manage important daily information in one place. I learned that ideation is most useful when ideas are evaluated against research evidence. A creative idea is not automatically a good solution if it does not match the users' real needs.
7. Competitor Analysis, User Flows and Sitemap
Before developing the application structure, we studied WhatsApp Business, Shopee Seller Centre and Loyverse POS System. Each competitor offered useful functions, but each also had limitations for our target users. WhatsApp Business was familiar and convenient for communication, but business records could become mixed with conversations. Shopee Seller Centre provided many seller functions, but its system was closely connected to one marketplace. Loyverse offered detailed point-of-sale tools, but some functions could feel complex for very small businesses.
We mapped the user flows of these products to understand how users completed important tasks. This helped us identify unnecessary steps and possible confusion. We then created a sitemap for PocketBiz. The main areas included Home, Sales, Orders, Products and Inventory, Customers, Expenses, Reports, Notebook, and Profile and Settings.
Creating the sitemap showed me that information architecture is an important part of user experience. Even if each screen looks attractive, users will still struggle if they cannot predict where a function is located. Our first sitemap contained too many items and some categories overlapped, so we reorganised the structure to make the navigation clearer.
8. Designing the PocketBiz Application
Once the research, concept and structure were confirmed, we started designing the PocketBiz interface. This was the first time in the project that our ideas became a visible application. We created screens for recording sales, managing orders, checking products and inventory, saving customer information, recording expenses, viewing reports and writing business notes.
We aimed to keep the interface friendly and easy to understand because the target users might not have experience with complicated business software. We used clear labels, familiar icons, simple cards and a consistent navigation system. The visual style also needed to feel supportive rather than too technical. During this stage, we revised the application name and ensured that PocketBiz appeared consistently across the design, sitemap and presentation.
The main challenge was balancing simplicity with functionality. We wanted to include enough tools to make the application useful, but too many options could make the interface confusing. I learned to think about visual hierarchy, spacing, button labels and the order in which users see information. I also learned that consistency is important: colours, type, icons and interactions should communicate the same design language across every page.
9. Usability Testing and Improvement
After completing the prototype, we planned usability testing around effectiveness, efficiency, learnability and utility. We prepared realistic scenarios and tasks so participants could use the application as small business owners. The main tasks included recording a sale, completing an order, finding today's profit, adding a product and editing a product.
During testing, we observed whether participants could complete each task, how long they needed, where they made mistakes and whether they understood the labels and navigation. This stage was valuable because some elements that seemed obvious to the design team were not equally obvious to new users. Testing reminded me that designers already know how their own system works, so they cannot depend only on their own judgement.
We reviewed the participants' comments and identified areas that required clearer wording, stronger visual hierarchy or easier navigation. The testing results helped us improve the prototype and also gave us evidence to explain our final decisions. I learned to treat user difficulty as information about the design, not as a failure by the participant.
10. Final Presentation and Project Outcome
For the final presentation, we continued using the same presentation file from the midterm stage. We revised the original slides and added the ideation process, competitor analysis, PocketBiz sitemap, application design, prototype and usability-testing results. This approach allowed the presentation to show how the project developed from research into a complete design solution.
Preparing the final presentation required us to reduce a large amount of work into a clear story. Our presentation contained many slides, so we needed to decide which information should be explained in detail and which information could be shown briefly. We also simplified the speaking script so that the words were easy to remember and the presentation could stay within the time limit.
By the final stage, the lecturer considered the work generally strong and there were no major changes required. We mainly focused on polishing the final submission, checking the presentation requirements and making sure the final blog and video links were included correctly. Compared with the midterm presentation, the final version showed a much more complete and confident project.
This project changed the way I understand design. At the beginning, I was more interested in the visual result, but I now understand that a successful interface depends on the quality of the research and problem definition behind it. Interviews, personas, journey maps and usability tests were not separate academic exercises. Each method helped us make a more informed design decision.
One of my strengths was contributing to the research on home-based online businesses and helping the team organise information visually. I was also able to adapt my work after group discussions and feedback. However, I sometimes found it difficult to choose the most important information because our project contained many research notes, screens and presentation slides. In future projects, I would organise the evidence earlier and maintain a clearer record of decisions throughout the process.
Teamwork was another important part of my learning. Different members focused on different user groups and design activities, so communication was necessary to keep the project consistent. I learned that group work is not only dividing tasks. We also need to review one another's work, explain our decisions and make sure all parts support the same project goal.
The most valuable lesson was that a design should make users' work feel easier, not simply add more functions. PocketBiz developed from a broad topic about B40 women entrepreneurs into a focused tool for daily business management. Although the prototype can still be developed further, I am proud that our final outcome was based on real user experiences and a clear design process.
In future, I would test PocketBiz with more sellers and explore language options and simpler reports. Overall, the project strengthened my research, teamwork, design and presentation skills.
Comments
Post a Comment