Cannalign
Building a Product Database For Medical Marijuana, Bringing Retailers, Vendors and Consumers On One Single Platform
For individual use, cannabis can help with health, mental problems and used to ease ailments in patients suffering from issues like cancer, anxiety, depression, stomach problems, insomnia, AIDS and even those struggling with drug abuse. However when it comes to scouting for cannabis products, there isn’t much help around. The goal was to provide consumers with abundance of information at their fingertips to help them understand and create their own opinions about what products are best suited for their overall health.
the challenge
The two main digital products (app & website) needed a strong connect with it variety of audience - users, vendors and dispensaries. Without any previous foundations laid, I had to ensure that we develop an intuitive information architecture and a visual coherent language in order to achieve our goal.
my role
Building user personas
Designing Information Architecture Map
(Paper) Prototyping
Visual Design (Mobile and Web)
Stage 1: Brand & Strategy Kickoff
With no prior foundation laid, my first task at hand was to establish a user experience strategy. This meant doing an in-depth analysis of all types of users that would be approaching this app to meet a specific requirement, outlining their problems and expectations and providing a definite solution for the same. This is how I proceeded.
Developing A Mission Statement
Every business works on a core value or a mission objective. By brainstorming & prioritizing various attributes, my team and I created the basis to put together a mission statement. Here is a list of attributes that helped us achieve the result.
culture
How the community would describe us?
- accessible
- information rich
- open
- local
target group
How would we describe our target audience?
- young
- open minded
- searching
- adaptable
voice
How do we want to sound to others?
- trustworthy
- serious
- community
- abundant
feeling
How to others feel about us after being in contact with us?
- happy
- involved
- supported
impact
How we are different from others?
- expanding horizons
- extended community
Product USP: Local - Community based, Information Rich, Trustworthy, For everyone inclusive.
Building User Personas
I started with building user personas for all three types of users this app had- Consumer, Vendor and Dispensaries. Using the quantitative and qualitative data from interviews and surveys, I defined the target group profiles (or user personas) for each user type.
Caronline
23, Musician
New York, USA
I want to live a healthy life so I can concentrate on my music and do work that I feel proud of. I am ready to try new stream of medication but I need to know before hand what I am dealing with.
Caroline is pursuing a career of a rock musician. She suffers from anxiety and insomnia and has tried several medication with no desired outcome. She recently came to knew about the benefits of medical marijuana and wants to give it a try
goals
- Find a cure to her health issues
- Know more about medical marijuana from an active community of users
- Have an easy access to information related to vendors & dispenseries around her.
pain points
- Not much advice available among her community circle
- Not sure what product is suitable for her treatment
- Clueless on where to buy good products from
Creating an Information Architecture Map
Based on the insights gained from initial round of content audits, competitor analysis and client’s own personal feedbacks, I defined the information architecture map for Cannalign.
A sample piece of information architecture map for consumer app
Stage 2: Wireframing & Prototyping
Though I did not design high-fidelity mockups and invision prototypes myself for Cannalign, I played an active role in UX discussion around interaction patterns, providing first round of feedbacks to analyst and design teams. My role was to provide guidance through low fidelity paper prototypes so that quick rounds of usability testing could be done before wasting time on digital implementation
Paper prototypes like these were ideal and handy when it came to carry UX discussions on interaction design with team. They acted as a tool to validate our choices, provide clarity and reduce the number of iterations in subsequent phases that followed suite.
Stage 3: Developing a Visual Coherent Language For Cannalign
Building Moodboards
Moodboards or a collection of assets and materials intended to communicate the style, voice, direction, and language for the product, was my first step towards building a uniform design language. This provided a good foundation allowing me to quickly jump to the next stage of visual designing.
The moodboard helped to set client’s preference about the generalistic stylistic concept of the screen. By creating an effective moodboard, I was able to convey the right mood and emotions expected from the product.
Creating a Styleguide
Next came styleguide which was developed by iterating from moodboard and styletiles creating the first version of styleguide.
UI Design for Mobile App & Website
Everything was finally sewn together to form the basis of UI design for both app and website. Here you can see most of the screens hand crafted for this project. To view complete presentation on UI design, please check my Behance page.
in client's words
Swati is among one of the best product focussed UX designers I have worked with in my career. She quickly demonstrated that she could solve all our vexing issues related to UX and UI for Cannalign. She has always displayed a high degree of responsibility, client service, creativity, and initiative. I’m happy with the work Swati did and given the chance, I'd love to work again with her in future.
Nico Spann
CEO/Co-Founder, Cannalign
Takeaways:
A flawless collaboration with all stakeholders including client and my own team at Appinventiv ensured that the project gets completed on time and with minimum iterations required, saving valuable time and effort on our end.
A great learning that I received from this project was to make sure to clearly communicate the exact goals and expectations for each team member and stick to a design process that benefits the product as well as everyone involved in it.
