Creating a Collaborative Writing Experience

Like most projects I worked on, this one also came to me through a referral. The sole stakeholder was a friend of a friend. Let us call her Ms. Maki for the sake of this case study.

The project was to develop an online literature and publishing platform for blogs, fiction, and collaborative writings for the Ethiopian community.

As a primary problem, such a local platform at the time of this project’s initiation does not exist. So, it was hoped that this platform would capture an untapped market.

In addition, not many platforms provide collaborative writing in the context of literary work.

This project was a rare case where I had to work alone but to validate the design decisions and functionality, I was in constant contact with Ms. Maki.

For this project, we hoped to mitigate that issue by developing a platform where any enthusiastic writer or reader can enjoy and collaborate at ease.

With the time constraint and after discussing the project with the sole stakeholder, Ms. Maki, for the MVP I chose to work on developing the platform with the problems mentioned before.

This was to be the MVP.

I had 2 weeks to make it happen.

As a requirement, Ms. Maki mentioned that for UI/UX References, I can use Medium or Wattpad. These served as the competitor references to conduct a competitive analysis.

The main goals of this competitive analysis:

To examine their unique selling points, feature sets, and user experiences.

To understand how each platform attracts and retains users.

To identify opportunities for improvement and innovation for our to-be-build application.

After research, I was to jump straight into Hi-fi prototypes due to the time constraint. While rapidly prototyping from feedback from the sole stakeholder, Ms. Maki. I also wanted to carve out enough time to conduct a usability test.

Based on the circumstances, I decided to come up with one solution and iterate it based on the competitive analysis, testing and feedback from Ms. Maki.

During the usability testing, one candidate suggested that I use the Google Docs collaborative feature. It was relatively practical and familiar for use.

It made me realize some points I missed in the competitive analysis.

Instead of taking a simple approach and proven pattern that works, I was trying to reinvent the wheel for a problem solved perfectly. (Lesson well learned)

The only stakeholder I could communicate with was Ms. Maki. Our means of communication were Google Meet and Telegram.

Towards the end of the project, Ms. Maki revealed that there were other stakeholders. She was their sole representative during one of our feedback sessions.

When writing this case study, I reached out to Ms. Maki to ask about the outcomes of the project. She again revealed that she was just a contractor who subcontracted the work to me. She was under an NDA from sharing any information about the project.

Hence, the final rounds of usability testing plus stakeholder satisfaction were the only measures of success.

You can find this case study and others on my portfolio at https://bit.ly/KaleabEshetu.