Find the perfect images for your brand using AI.

SUMMARY

This was my industry design project through Springboard. Dzomo is a search engine, with technology that uses a special mixture of textual and image search to find exactly what you want. This product can be used by companies to find “on-brand” images that they can use in marketing.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The founders of Dzomo need a demo of their product to show to potential investors.

SOLUTION

I worked together with the founders of Dzomo to develop a demo featuring three different search options. We felt that these options best represented how the AI could assist users in finding images that they could use for marketing, ultimately saving them time and money.

ROLE

My role on this project was as a collaborator with the founder & lead developer of Dzomo, focusing on the usability of the demo and the overall design.

SCOPE

6 weeks

CONSTRAINTS

Short timeline

Competitive Analysis

heuristic analysis of DIRECT competitors

The first step I took after the kickoff meeting was to become familiar with other image search engines. I had used them in the past, but as with most things in the UX field, their particularities had been invisible to me as a normal user. I was given a list of Dzomo’s competitors, so I went through and did a short heuristic analysis on each one. It allowed me to set the bar for what I wanted to accomplish with my work.

Communication is key

A SITEMAP I DIDN’T NEED

Afterwards, I created a sitemap for the entire site of Dzomo, which I learned afterward was not what I was going to be working on. This was a huge relief! I would instead be working on a demo version of the site to show investors the capabilities of their AI, which is being developed by one of the co-founders. I switched gears and decided to go into the sketch phase from there.

Keep your brainstorm session to yourself

CLIENTS NEED CLARITY

Do not show clients your messy brainstorm sketches! This was a lesson I learned over a video call while I was zooming in and out of my sloppy sketches, attempting to communicate my ideas to clients that were struggling to read my handwriting. I was able to express my thoughts enough so I could get the greenlight to move forward with wireframes, but just barely. Once this hurdle was crossed, the founders and I were on the same page (phew).

Low fidelity iterations

COLLABORATION USING WIREFRAMES

I took my sketches and turned them into digital wireframes in Figma. There were a couple iterations of each page, some feeling too generic while others didn’t feel cohesive enough. Ideas were hatched and refined as I designed the demo, which made me feel like a valuable collaborator. I did my best to guide them towards a product that was going to be easy to use.

Defining a style

A MOODBOARD & sTYLE GUIDE

I received the go ahead on the moodboard, so I then created a style guide while heavily referencing the collection of images I had gathered. Clean. Bold. Pink. At this point in the process, I had a clear idea as to what I wanted the demo to look like, so the style guide came together quickly. They approved it with no changes needing to be made, which allowed me to move forward with refining the wireframes into high fidelity mockups.

The final designs

HAPPY CLIENTS, HAPPY LIFE

Because my wireframes tend to be detailed, converting them into mockups is typically a stress free and fun process for me. I took care to pull text styles from my style guide and make changes to the guide itself if I needed something that wasn’t available. I also kept my master components on their own separate page, which is something I will continue to do in the future - it makes a huge difference! The Dzomo founders were pleased with my design with only a few minor adjustments to be made.

Lessons learned

EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER

I learned so much from my Industry Design Project. As I mentioned earlier in the case study, there were a few bumps in the road after the initial kickoff meeting. My first big lesson was to ask more questions at the beginning of the process, and what kind of questions provide the most important context for the project at hand. Secondly, I learned that sketches & personal brainstorm sessions are not a reliable way to express your ideas to your clients. It was an invaluable project and I'm grateful that such a project was part of the Springboard curriculum.

Let's keep in touch!
tiffany.vandermark@gmail.com