UppBio
A tool to better research, model, analyze, collaborate, and make critical research decisions in biomanufacturing.
Role : UX Design / Research Intern
As a part of Springboard's UX Design Bootcamp, I was given an Internship opportunity to work on a start-up called UppBio.
Project Interests
As I discovered my interest in research from my capstone project (Preloved), this internship focused mainly on competitive analysis as UppBio is trying to develop a competing product in the Biomanufacturing industry. I sharpened my knowledge of conducting a competitive analysis and discovered my passion for analyzing things to improve the user's experience. I loved collaborating with a team of designers as it was an experience of how the design industry operates in the real world.
Overview
UppBio is a biomanufacturing start-up that has developed an algorithm and SaaS platform that allows research and development scientists to use their tools to better research, model, analyze, collaborate, and make critical research decisions.
Problem Statement
UppBio's website has several critical issues that must be addressed to improve its efficiency and design a dashboard highlighting its tools' functions and features.
Goal
This project aimed to develop and design UppBio's dashboard and reorganize and redesign the UppBio website landing page.
Constraints
Timeline : 4 weeks
Prototype : Mid-fidelity.
Constraints:
1. Unique and streamlined dashboard that looks and feels easy to use.
2. Improve the website's appearance, including necessary information and critical audit weaknesses.
Design Process
We started the project by following the user-centered design process, starting with research, then competitive analysis, and finally getting into the design phase.
Secondary Research
As this was a completely new industry, I took some extra time to learn about this particular industry to understand how things work so that I could design a better product. I researched existing online resources and found similar products trying to solve the same problem. With this, we moved on to the next step of doing a competitive analysis.
Competitive Analysis
As a team, we started to select from the list of companies that were provided by our client who was trying to solve the same problem, and we did deep research to find what each of them was doing differently, making them stand out. I choose Teselagen, a biotechnology company that develops DNA design and assembly tools for biology. The other companies we chose were LatchBio, Ganymede and Benchling.
These organizations are the most relevant regarding biotech, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, which one is more evolved? Which one has the biggest reach? Which one is the easiest to use? By evaluating what LatchBio, Teselagen, Ganymede, and Benchling do right and wrong, you can figure out where your UppBio fits in the market and how to improve.
Sketch
With our research and analysis, we started sketching the best possible solution to make UppBio stand out among its competitors. Sketches allow us to explore and try out many ideas and possible solutions that will allow us to integrate them before settling on a chosen solution.
I started by brainstorming the dashboard design, the main feature UppBio asked us to develop, and the essential feature of their website.
The dashboard consists of three main features: the search engine or the pathfinder, the results page, and a team page.
As a team, each of us sketched the best possible solution, and for the final design, we incorporated the best feature into our final sketch.
Design
With the final sketch, we started to design the mid-fidelity prototype. First, I started designing the pathfinder, which has a search engine, a properties page, and a builder page. Next, we updated and streamlined the UppBio dashboard components and elements. The focus was placed on enabling users to export their results into Benchling. As well as creating a dashboard to access the Pathfinder function and design a molecule manually easily.
The critical issues of the website were the lack of call-to-action buttons. We have improved the website's information architecture by consolidating the navigation bar and adding more pages. In addition, improve the hero section by providing more information and a call-to-action button. The website was also inconsistent with elements with broken elements.
Conclusion
As a designer, this project was a total learning experience for me because we began with a lack of user definition and knowledge. However, we overcame this as a team and completed the project effectively. This project taught me how to work as part of an asynchronous team while dealing with a lack of information. Nonetheless, it was an experience tackling a real-world project and prepared me to take on similar challenges that will come along my way.