Proportion Global
✴︎
Proportion Global ✴︎
hcd community platform
user research ✴︎ UI/UX design ✴︎ platform design
Proportion Community is an exclusive digital platform for HCD consultants by Proportion Global Design agency, crafted based on user needs, from problem definition to the final product.
project overview
problem statement
Proportion Global aims to connect local HCD consultants with INGOs (clients) for cross-country innovation projects through a digital platform.
With limited UX and product design experience and capacity, they struggle to understand user problems and create value and unique selling point for their concept.
design challenge
How might we (HMW) create a service that interests HCD consultants so Proportion Global can utilise their network to attract new clients?
empathise: qualitative research
Preliminary research
Analysed Proportion Global’s research report produced from a related project involving the current state of HCD consultants’ supply and demand. Hypotheses were formulated and used as a direction for the current project’s research.
Qualitative interview
10 participants: HCD consultants, INGO project managers, and Proportion Global business development team. Key research questions involved:How do local HCD consultants influence INGOs and their cross-country projects?
How do designers perceive HCD communities?
How do INGOs identify, select, and recruit HCD consultants for cross-country projects?
How do INGOs manage internal and external teams to run cross-country projects?
What kind of impact does Proportion Global aim to have on the civil society sector?
Interview with all stakeholders: Proportion Global, HCD consultants, and INGO project manager.
Patterns were identified and formulated using a synthesis board through brainstorming, affinity diagramming, and dot voting in collaboration with Proportion Global members. Through the patterns, 3 key insights were formulated.
HCD consultants need access to their peers when they are stuck on a project, resulting in a feeling of loneliness in the field
INGOs don’t know where to look for qualified native HCD consultants in most regions
INGO’s procurement processes are painfully complicated and are not communicated efficiently
Define: patterns and insights
Community platform
Develop a digital platform that connects, facilitates collaboration, and enables HCD consultants to share knowledge with their peers.
Matchmaking platform
Develop a digital platform to connect vetted HCD consultants with INGOs as part of the design agency's services for tendering support.
design direction(s)
The client wanted to explore both directions, believing that meeting HCD consultants’ needs would boost revenue by attracting more INGOs through a strong HCD team. The rationale was as follows:
⬆️ Qualified HCD consultants = ⬆️ Incoming clients = ⬆️ Agency’s revenue
However, focusing only on the community platform lacks a revenue model, and pursuing both options would extend the project’s scope and timeline. Due to time constraints, expansion wasn’t possible. The project was prioritised as follows:
Develop a community platform, grow membership to at least 50 countries, and manually provide the community database to INGOs → this is the project’s MVP
Digitise the agency’s workflow to let INGOs actively recruit HCD consultants on Proportion Global’s platform.
ideate: creative workshop
Creative sessions with HCD experts generated feature ideas for the community platform, addressing user problems based on the key insights. These ideas were converged, prioritised, and selected collaboratively by junior and senior HCD consultants and Proportion’s business developer, ensuring diverse perspectives.
Their familiarity with brainstorming techniques and HMW questions accelerated idea generation. Dot-voting and affinity diagramming clustered similar ideas to avoid duplication. Clusters were reviewed for user relevance and prioritised using an impact-effort matrix, focusing on high-impact, low-effort concepts. The final product includes the Proportion Website redesign and the HCD Community Platform.
Left to right — brainstorm, dot-vote, and affinity diagram; features list; impact-effort matrix to prioritize features
🏛️ Proportion Community Platform
A community platform solves both business and user needs:
Proportion → community platform is the friendly form of Proportion’s talent pool. Proportion will pick talents from the pool to offer up to clients to win tenders and work on impact-related challenges in their respective countries. More talents = more business and profit.
HCD professionals → the community platform supports their career as a whole. It opens more job opportunities (solves the slow business of freelancers), connects them to their peers worldwide (solves loneliness), and becomes an information hub for HCD.
Some of the key features of the platform that fulfill the HCD professionals’ needs
Online events
Job Board page
Q&A forums in groups
Direct messaging
Add Friends
Activity feeds (posts)
🏢 Proportion Website
The website will contain all information about Proportion Global as a design agency, structured for INGOs interested in collaborating with Proportion and its network.
Becomes the center of Proportion Global’s digital presence
Increase credibility and visibility as an agency; real address, phone number, and the usage of digital marketing (SEO).
Showcase reasons why INGOs should hire Proportion (case studies & community)
prototype
Wireframes
Lo-fi wireframes
Sketched and presented several of the pages during the design team meeting for internal feedback and dot voting on the first layout (see the pink dots)
Hi-fi wireframes
I made the information architecture through the wireframe designs and asked for feedback from the internal team.
Wireframes v1 — see more screens
Wireframes v2 — see more screens
sitemap & vetting process
In order to provide qualified HCD professionals to INGOs, Proportion aims to vet candidates before joining the community. Those who don't pass the vetting process will be directed to Proportion Academy for a short HCD course to enhance their qualifications.
Proportion Global Website
page designs
Proportion Community Platform
The platform was built using the BuddyBoss WordPress theme. For efficiency reasons, I prototyped only a few of the pages to experiment with the style guide implementation then developed the rest directly using the sitemap as the structure. See all screens in the Drive.
Test: message & usability testing
Online usability test were organised via Zoom with 7 participants, including junior to senior HCD professionals from different countries. Using the think-aloud protocol, the participants were tasked to share their thoughts while interacting with the prototype.
The user testing is only for the Proportion Global website because:
The platform uses a WordPress theme that cannot able to be flexibly changed
After heuristic evaluation of the platform, the design is already simple and easily understandable
Time and resource restrictions
🏁 Goal of the usability test:
Identify problems in the design of the product or service
Uncover opportunities to improve
Learn about the target user’s behavior and preferences
Investigate the clarity of the information architecture and its compatibility with the mental model of the users.
Test results
7 out of 7 participants
understood the overall concept of the community platform
4 out of 7 participants
participants feel that some information seems to be misplaced
4 out of 7 participants
participants feel the value proposition should be phrased better
7 out of 7 participants
are excited to join the platform just by reading the community page
Final Design
Iterations made following the recommendation:
Changed the style tile to the v2 instead of the final → more accessible with thicker lines
Copy changes and how to title the sections
Merged ‘for clients’ and ‘for HCD professionals’ page
Redesigned style tile
Visual elements appeared as development errors rather than decorative ones. The overall color combinations lacked a fun and friendly mood. The changes made to achieve a vibrant, fun, friendly, and professional website are:
Visual design ( removed patterns, changed illustration style)
Branding → added one color for BG and shades, used more blue because it’s soothing and is the most commonly used color for branding.
Mood → still fun and friendly but professional, focus on
UI/UX Refresh
After constant learning and improvement for the past few years, I redesigned this project to accurately reflect my current skills. Some of the changes made:
Restructured site map and information architecture
As Proportion Global's digital identity, the website must emphasize content for visibility and credibility to build trust with clients and HCD professionals. Changes include:
Moved the values from About us → Community landing page — values are more relevant in the community rather than the about page, mission vision ambition are already written there.
Moved the Community page to the bottom of the menu item — focus on the agency instead of the community platform
Refreshed designs
Refreshed Wireframes
Next steps
User Input and Product Enhancement:
Gather user input and understand experiences and problems on the platform
Use this input for continuous product improvements
Connecting HCD Professionals and Revenue:
Start working on the second goal: connecting HCD professionals to NGOs for revenue generation.
Gain revenue from the collaborations and platform
Conclusion
According to the concept and product testing, I have fulfilled the new project goal:
✅ Create a community platform, grow the members into at least 50 countries, and manually offer the community as a database to the INGOs