Background

The target audience includes artists, photographers, filmmakers, and designers. LettsArt is a venture of LettsGroup, the UK’s leading venture group.

Challenge

As a member of the team from the early stages of development, I have been instrumental in shaping the unique proposition of this project aimed at disrupting the industry. Upon joining, the tech stack was already in place, so I focused on building a new user experience for the dashboards and streamlining the onboarding process. Additionally, I was responsible for defining the brand identity and designing the product website, logo, and establishing the visual identity of LettsGroup. The design process required a high degree of flexibility due to frequent changes in the product specifications.

Process

At the start of the project, I played a crucial role in the branding process, including designing the logo and establishing the visual identity for LettsArt. The deployment process of the platform was streamlined as the functionalities were defined and refined during each sprint. Working in an agile fashion, the team started with the technology stack and then focused on enhancing the user experience. A pre-established UI kit library was used to speed up development and wireframes and prototypes were skipped in favor of iterating directly in the staging environment with regular feature releases. Feedback from early adopters enrolled in the fast-track release schedule was integral in fine-tuning the workflow in the first three sprints. Both the application and product website were developed in parallel, improving with new and refined patterns each week. The project documentation was kept minimal to ensure the efficiency and speed of the small but driven team.

Solution

LettsArt is a user-friendly platform designed for non-technical creative individuals who are passionate about showcasing their art to the world. The platform is intuitive and easy to use, making it accessible to a wide range of users. The basic free plan offers a comprehensive suite of tools, including an online gallery, collection and series grouping, the ability to sell both physical and digital art, and a publishing tool for updates and newsletters. With no technical skills required, users can quickly and easily set up their online presence and start showcasing their art to the world. Whether you are an artist, photographer, filmmaker, or designer, LettsArt provides the perfect platform to bring your creative work to life and reach a global audience.

My contribution

As a member of the LettsArt team, my primary focus was on user experience design and taking on the role of product owner as needed. I collaborated closely with the lead developer and product owner to define and enhance features and bring the elements of the user experience to life through a combination of assisting hands-on coding and high-definition Figma layouts. The feedback received from early adopters was promptly processed and translated into actionable tasks, allowing us to continuously improve the product and create a truly seamless experience for our users.

Learning

The biggest takeaway from this project is that, with a combination of rapid decision-making, intuition, and genuine collaboration within a small but highly motivated team, outputs can easily match those generated by equivalent large-scale teams within much bigger organizations. Additionally, the key to success was a willingness to swiftly evolve ideas that didn’t resonate with the user base, rather than overthinking different scenarios. The focus was on creating the best possible option and promptly testing it in the real world.