Minor Project

Minor project/ PRJ62204 

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21.4.2026 -24.5.2026 (week 1 - week 5) 
Low Xin Er / 0374596 / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media

Minor Project

Lecture: Dr Wong Chui Yin

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MODULE INFORMATION

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PROGRESS

Week 1 (April 21, 2026)

The professor clearly provided and explained the assignment objectives and requirements for this subject; all the materials were in the teams' folder and Google Drive file.

This assignment required us to solve real-world problems and needs, communicate with real customers and groups, and ultimately provide an actionable solution.

During the group formation process, our group eventually had 5 people. Since we knew each other and had a certain level of understanding, we started discussing even before deciding on a team leader.

I created a Figma whiteboard to record our ideas at each step and to track each person's activity level.

Figma link

Week 1 (April 25, 2026)

We had discussions on weekend evenings, working backward from our initial ideas and feasible solutions to determine the interview questions and target audience. Ultimately, we decided on our precise target demographic:

Week 2 (April 29, 2026)

We decided on the interview questions, and we have different interview questions for different target groups. Which is Physical Micro Business Women and Physical + Online Business Women.

Week 3 (April 9,2026)

The interview event took place at 9:00 AM on April 9th, with 15 female entrepreneurs present.

Our group interviewed the last four, concluding in approximately 30 minutes. The entrepreneur I interviewed runs a baking business, baking in her own kitchen and attracting customers online. Her biggest challenge is that baking in the kitchen leaves her with no time to deal with online customers; she can only reply to messages when she has free time. The most exhausting aspect is that she has no assistants and does all the work herself, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, with no days off and no clear distinction between personal and work hours. Her income and expenses are also disorganized, especially regarding how to reasonably set product prices to cover costs. 

She wants to expand her business, upgrade to a larger kitchen, and hire part-time assistants, but her income is insufficient. Her monthly income of 3000 NTD, after deducting costs for ingredients and other items, leaves her with only 1500 NTD. Her family is unable to help, leaving her to develop and sustain the business alone. She wants to promote online but is unfamiliar with current features, and her content hasn't yielded good results. She wants to learn new skills to improve. She expressed that her main focus now is developing her Instagram account.

Week 4 (April 12,2026)

I organized the interview content and uploaded the audio recording and consent. The professor demonstrated in class how to use an affinity diagram to organize and categorize data, using specific examples from other groups. That day, we each started updating our Figma records of the interview content we were responsible for, summarizing key points with sticky notes for later categorization.

Week 4 (May 17,2026)

We held an online meeting and used the Figma jam board to create an affinity diagram of the key points we had summarized from our sticky notes. For the target group I was responsible for, we summarized 6 clusters:

• Cluster 1 - Multi-Platform Presence, One Primary Channel
• Cluster 2 - Time is the #1 Pain Point
• Cluster 3 - Micro-Business Scale
• Cluster 4 - Willing to Grow, But Constrained
• Cluster 5 - Content Creation is a Major Burden
• Cluster 6 - Understaffed and Under-Supported

Week 5 (May 19,2026)

In class, the professor helped us confirm and adjust our categories, further subdividing these six categories within each group to aid in later analysis. We analyzed the interviewees each person conducted, considering their identities, needs, and desires, to summarize our future direction. Additionally, our group began assigning tasks to create the slides.

Week 5 (May 24,2026)

Submission Task 1: Proposal an Innovative Project Proposal as a Group (20%)

Week 6 (May 26,2026)

Crazy 8s Brainstorming Session

During this studio session, our professor introduced us to the "Crazy 8s" design sprinting methodology. Each team member was instructed to take a blank sheet of paper and fold it into eight distinct quadrants. Without relying on any electronic devices or external digital references, we were challenged to rapidly sketch or write down eight unique solution ideas within a constrained timeframe. The exercise encouraged us to think outside the box without being constrained by formatting or feasibility at the initial stage. Following the rapid ideation, we pitched our concepts to one another, discussed the potential of each inspiration, and collectively short-listed the most viable solutions to move forward.

Week 7 (June 2,2026)

No classes were held this week due to the mid-term holiday, giving the team a brief period to recharge before diving into the upcoming presentation phase.

Week 8 (June 9,2026)

Progress Presentation & Stakeholder Feedback

We delivered a comprehensive presentation covering our project background, research objectives, target audience profile, and our conceptual ideation process, ultimately proposing two distinct solutions. However, the feedback from our clients was critical; they pointed out that our proposals felt overly academic and lacked real-world commercial viability.

Our initial proposals included a digital community/academy and a local stall finder application/website. For the online academy, we envisioned a peer-support ecosystem where micro-entrepreneurs could share experiences, supplemented by weekly offline workshops led by industry professionals to enhance their business management skills. The clients noted that we lacked established channels to secure these professionals and failed to propose a sustainable cash flow model, making the solution idealistic but impractical. For the local stall finder platform, the clients argued that users would not proactively visit such a niche site. In reality, because local street food is already so ubiquitous, a platform dedicated solely to neighborhood stalls offers too little consumer value to drive active user adoption. Launching it would require massive market education and capital-intensive marketing, making it a high-effort, low-yield endeavor. Taking this valuable feedback into account, we resolved to merge the two concepts while heavily pivoting toward practical market viability.

Week 9 (June 15,2026)

Task 2 Submission

Task 2 Focus: Propose, devise, and produce design management protocols relevant to industry practice. To meet the industry standards required for this submission, we refined our initial Crazy 8s sketches and officially consolidated our concepts. We pivoted from two separate ideas into a singular, integrated final solution: a dedicated mobile application and companion website acting as a localized stall finder.

Week 9 (June 16,2026)

Consultation & Project Briefing

We spent this session further brainstorming and fleshing out the operational details of our consolidated solution, particularly its financial sustainability. We designed a dual-revenue cash flow structure: the platform will generate income by renting out premium advertising spaces, while users will be incentivized to interact and leave reviews in exchange for F&B discount vouchers. To generate our crucial initial wave of traction, our launch strategy involves targeted marketing campaigns. We plan to actively onboard female micro-entrepreneurs from the B40 community via social media outreach, while simultaneously drawing in food enthusiasts with the voucher system, thereby boosting the digital exposure and foot traffic for these local businesses.

Week 10 (June 23,2026)

Defining Usability Goals and Concerns

This week was dedicated to establishing measurable benchmarks for our upcoming testing stage. To ensure statistical reliability and qualitative depth, we set a baseline requirement of at least 5 participants for the usability testing sessions. We thoroughly documented our usability goals and analyzed the platform from the perspective of our user personas. By mapping out realistic user scenarios and touchpoints, we explicitly outlined the exact steps and time required for a user to navigate our solution. This granular mapping allowed us to identify subtle bottlenecks and optimize the user flow for a smoother digital experience.

Week 11 (June 30,2026)

Core Solution Finalization & Prototype Delegation

We officially finalized the local stall finder as our definitive project solution. The ecosystem serves three pillars: general users can discover nearby culinary hidden gems and earn vouchers through active reviews; stall owners can promote their businesses, track their profile traffic, and review customer feedback for operational improvements; and the platform itself monetizes via ad space sales. With the concept locked in, we split into two specialized sub-teams: UI/UX Prototyping and Social Media Promotion. I joined the social media team, where we selected Instagram as our primary marketing vehicle. We initiated drafts for 6 core promotional posts, further delegating the workload among our 3 team members—one focusing on the IG profile mockup, one on static post designs, and one on Reels cover layouts. We also collaborated to align our visual identity, standardizing the color palette, typography, and logo usage.

Week 12 (July 7,2026)

Prototype Progress Review & Lecturer Critique

We presented the mid-fidelity progress of our prototype, which features a dual-mode interface: Customer Mode and Vendor Mode. The Customer Mode highlights intuitive food categorization, seamless discovery, and the loyalty points/voucher system. Conversely, the Vendor Mode focuses on profile customization, business promotion tools, and a dedicated feedback section where owners can analyze customer reviews. During the review, the professor pointed out a major issue regarding our social media posters: the backgrounds were overly cluttered and distracting, overshadowing the primary messaging. We were advised to simplify or de-emphasize the backgrounds to refocus attention on the human elements and main headlines, while also increasing font sizes across all titles to maximize readability.

Week 13 (July 14,2026)

Final Prototype Refinement & Presentation Preparation

This week, we successfully implemented the professor's feedback by refining our social media promotional prototypes and integrating them into our final slide deck. We finalized the remaining logo variations, established the brand style guide, and documented the strategic purpose behind each Instagram post. On the software design front, the UI/UX prototype is roughly 95% complete; the visual design is fully polished, and we successfully introduced a comprehensive merchant dashboard for the Vendor Mode based on last week's critique. We have begun synthesizing all research data and design outputs into our final pitch presentation, carefully structuring the flow to ensure our delivery stays strictly within the 15-minute time limit.

Week 14 (July 21,2026)

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FEEDBACK

Week 2 (April 29, 2026)
The professor reminded us not to lead interviewees by giving too many suggested answers. We should keep questions open, let them speak in their own words, and only give examples when they don’t understand the question.

Week 3 (April 9, 2026)
From the real interview session, I learned that open-ended questions and patient listening help entrepreneurs share deeper stories about time pressure, income struggles, and lack of support, which are more useful than short, “yes/no” answers.

Week 4 (April 12, 2026)
The professor’s demonstration of the affinity diagram showed us how to turn raw interview notes into organized themes. This helped us see connections across different interviews instead of treating each one in isolation.

Week 4 (May 17, 2026)
Using a shared Figma jam board to build the affinity diagram made it easier for the group to cluster key points together. The process highlighted recurring issues such as time constraints, small scale, and content creation burdens among micro-business women.

Week 5 (May 19, 2026)
In-class feedback on our clusters helped refine and subdivide categories, making our analysis clearer and more focused. This also guided us to think more concretely about our future design direction and how to present findings in the slides.

Week 6 (May 26, 2026)

The Crazy 8s brainstorming session challenged us to break free from digital constraints and think rapidly on our feet. Pitching these unpolished, diverse ideas to the team sparked a highly collaborative discussion, helping us identify creative overlaps and select our strongest conceptual paths forward.

Week 7 (June 2, 2026)

The mid-term break provided the team with necessary breathing room to step back from active production. This pause allowed us to return with a fresh perspective, ready to evaluate our consolidated ideas critically before presenting them.

Week 8 (June 9, 2026)

Receiving direct client feedback was a crucial reality check for the project. While our proposals were academically sound, the critique forced us to confront real-world commercial limitations—such as low consumer motivation and unsustainable cash flows—prompting a vital pivot toward a more integrated, market-viable solution.

Week 9 (June 15, 2026）

Completing the Task 2 submission pushed us to formalize our ideation into standard industry design protocols. Refining the Crazy 8s drafts into a singular local stall finder concept gave the team a unified, concrete direction for the remainder of the project.

Week 9 (June 16, 2026)

The consultation session helped us bridge the gap between abstract design and commercial reality. Developing a structured revenue model and a strategic marketing rollout for the B40 community gave our technical solution a much-needed layer of practical, real-world viability.

Week 10 (June 23, 2026)

Establishing specific usability benchmarks and mapping user personas shifted our focus toward the actual end-user experience. Outlining the exact user journey steps was instrumental in highlighting subtle friction points and identifying areas for immediate optimization.

Week 11 (June 30, 2026)

Dividing the team into specialized UI/UX and social media promotional tracks significantly boosted our development efficiency. Setting up a unified visual identity—standardizing our colors, fonts, and logo early on—ensured that both the application and the Instagram mockups remained cohesive.

Week 12 (July 7, 2026)

The progress presentation highlighted both the strengths of our dual-mode prototype and the visual weaknesses of our promotional materials. The professor’s critique regarding cluttered backgrounds and text readability provided clear, actionable steps to improve our typographic hierarchy and visual focus.

Week 13 (July 14, 2026)

Integrating the feedback from the previous week allowed us to polish the final UI details, successfully adding the merchant dashboard and refining our social media assets. Compiling these components into the slide deck forced us to streamline our narrative to fit the 15-minute presentation window perfectly.

Week 14 (July 21, 2026)

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REFLECTION

Throughout these weeks, I learned how to move from understanding assignment requirements to actually engaging with real users, capturing their stories, and organizing those insights into meaningful patterns. The feedback on interview technique made me more aware of not leading participants, while the affinity diagram process trained me to see common themes behind different individual experiences. Working collaboratively in Figma also improved our transparency and teamwork. Overall, this project strengthened my skills in qualitative interviewing, data organization, and user-centered thinking, and it reminded me that effective design must respect the real constraints of micro-entrepreneurs’ time, energy, and resources.