The Actor’s Daily Discipline

Helping actors navigate their careers through a career coach

Duration: 6 Weeks

Role: UX/UI Designer + Brand Designer + Researcher

Project Type: End-to-End Mobile Application

Tools: Figma, FigJam, and Zoom

Domain Area: Arts and Entertainment

What is The Actor’s Daily Discipline?

The Actor’s Daily Discipline is an App that provides a Daily Discipline for users to complete each day, Journal prompts, and a way to connect with the acting community.

Background

The Actor’s Daily Discipline is an App that has been designed for aspiring actors. This app gives actors a place to journal each day, a daily discipline to complete each day to keep them on track with their careers, and a place to connect with the acting community.

According to statistics, only 2 percent of aspiring actors actually make it as a career. This app has been designed to help the other 98 percent to realize their potential and learn how to treat their acting career as a business.

The Problem

While there are many aspiring actors, there are not many who know how to manage their careers. Many of these individuals are left floundering for years, and eventually give up on their dreams.

The one thing that is lacking is the ability to have an app that will give actors the disciplines that will become a daily career coach for them. To alleviate this problem, actors need significant content that is short, clear, and relevant to them.

The Goal

The primary goal of The Actor’s Daily Discipline is to stimulate independent habits in order to treat their career as a business. This will be accomplished by:

  • Serving as a central hub for actors seeking to deepen their business acumen

  • Featuring disciplines for the user to complete each day

  • Providing the users with a notification of what activity is to be completed each day

  • Providing the users with a place to journal and keep track of their daily progress

The Process

Through user interviews and competitive analysis, I found that there is an opportunity to provide a daily app for actors that will help them treat their career as a business. This will allow them to be more successful in their career and begin to see true career growth.

The Conclusion

I designed and tested three key flows that would be used by actors. The designs were rated highly in ease of use, the design, and the overall concept. The participants thought it was very user-friendly, and that it would be a very beneficial app for actors to use.

The Design Process

EMPATHIZE

  • Research Plan

  • Competitive Analysis

  • User Interviews

  • Interview Analysis

  • Affinity Mapping

DEFINE

  • User Personas

  • How-Might-We Statements

IDEATE

  • Feature Roadmap

  • Sitemap

  • User Flows

DESIGN

  • Low Fidelity Wireframes

  • Branding And UI Design

  • High Fidelity Wireframes

  • Prototype

TESTING

  • Usability Testing

  • Revisions

  • The Final Prototype

Empathize

Research Plan | Competitive Analysis | User Interviews | Interview Analysis | Affinity Mapping

Client Meeting

Before starting the research, I met with the client to learn more about her business and marketing goals. She was able to give me insight into her areas of specialization and what her goals were for the app in general. She was also able to tell me some of the most frequently asked questions by her acting students. The client requested a simple logo design, and certain colors to be incorporated throughout the app. Knowing her goals was a great starting point as it gave me direction and helped to guide some of my decisions as I began my research.

User Research Goals

My goal was to understand what actors are looking for in an App that would help them to treat their career as a business. This was a crucial step in order to define the problem and design the solution.

We want to learn:

  • What App’s actors use, so that we can understand what type of App to develop.

  • What areas have the most pain points, so we can understand what type of App to develop.

  • What current trends are, so we can better understand the audience that the App is intended for.

User Research Objectives

We need to understand:

  • If having an App specifically designed for actors would be beneficial.

  • What business practices would be best for Actor’s.

  • What will motivate Actor’s that would be using the App.

I compared the features, strengths, and weaknesses of four acting and tracking platforms: TAO, Performance Track, Mainboard, and Habit Tracker. The research helped prepare me for the user interviews by giving me a better understanding of the current resources available to actors. This also helped me to identify common strengths and weaknesses so that I could better understand what elements were needed or needed to be avoided when designing the app.

Competitive Analysis Insights

  • Pricing: Most of the apps were very pricy and had limited pricing options

  • Tracking: Most of the apps had a daily tracking feature as well as statistics

  • Calendar: Most of the app had a calendar feature or the ability to sync to a mobile calendar

User Interviews

I conducted interviews with 5 participants:

  • All actors ranging in ages from 30-65

  • All were asked questions focusing on six main categories

  • Type of things they are motivated by

  • Main challenges of their acting journey

  • How to keep track and organize daily activities

  • How they treat their acting career as a business

  • What apps they use for motivational/work purposes

  • What their acting background is

User Interview Analysis

User Goals and Motivations

  • All participants would like to see an app designed specifically for actors

  • All participants use a calendar to keep track of their schedules

  • All participants use social media or apps regularly

  • 3 out of 5 participants use apps that are rewards based

  • 3 out of 5 participants would use an app to keep them motivated

User Needs

  • All participants needed a functioning calendar to use regularly, and 4 out of 5 participants wanted that calendar to sync with one or multiple phones

  • All participants wanted to see activities that pertained to acting

  • 4 out of 5 participants wanted to see acting events in the Chicagoland area

  • 4 out of 5 participants wanted daily push notifications when the daily activity was available

  • 3 out 5 participants wanted an app that they could pay for add on features such as an audition coaching if needed

User Frustration and Pain Points

  • All participants struggled to find an app that acted as a business coach

  • All participants were unable to find a simple calendar function in an app that would sync with their phones

  • All participants were frustrated with the lack of acting information in one place in the Chicago area

  • 3 out of 5 participants were overwhelmed when looking for a way to stay on track in their careers

  • 3 out of 5 participants were frustrated with the lack of available coaches/mentors

  • 3 out of 5 participants were frustrated with the lack of available audition prep/audition readers for self-tapes

I want to make a mark before I leave this world. I want to tell stories and influence how people see the world.
In order to keep myself actively engaged as an actor, I try to stay as healthy as possible in all areas of my life.
I don’t do anything to be ok at it. I want to be the best at everything I do.

Creating an affinity map in FigJam helped me to find patterns among the participants and I was able to identify ares of common goals, common fears, and common frustrations.

Affinity Mapping

Key Research Insights

  • Actors want an app specifically designed for them

  • Actors want to be sent daily activities to complete

  • Actors want to be able to connect with other actors in the Chicagoland area

  • Actors want to be connected to a mentor or coach

  • Actors value calendar sync options, personalized accounts, and educational resources

The Big Takeaway

After analyzing the interview documentation, it was clear that ease of use and user resources were the most important things when designing an app for actors. Over and over usable functions and multiple resources were mentioned, showing how important these features would be in an app for actors.

Define

User Personas | Point-of-View Statements | How-Might-We Questions

Building User Empathy

My competitive analysis and user interviews provided me with a better understanding of who my users are and what problems that they face. In order to turn my research findings into visualizations, I created two key user personas to help me empathize with my users and understand their needs.

This is David

As I reviewed the research findings, some very clear patterns emerged. I was able to create this primary user persona, David, by identifying the common goals, motivations, and frustrations among my interview participants’ answers. David represents a busy working actor who needs a way to stay on track in his career while staying informed of happenings in the. Chicagoland area.

This is Katie

She is a working actor and mom, and has a full-time job. She has a hard time staying on track with her acting because of how busy her life is. She needs help treating her acting as career and needs tools that will enable her to do that on a daily basis.

How-Might-We Statements

Now that I could visualize my users and empathize with their problems, I wanted to create how-might-we questions that would help me to clarify the key problems and focus on designing an End to End Application to meet my user’s needs.

How Might We:

  • Design a tool that helps users to keep track of tasks to complete, tasks completed, and upcoming tasks.

  • Give actors tools to use daily to track and record their career progress.

  • Design a product with engagement tools that are easy for users to access, navigate, and engage with to complete daily tasks.

  • Help actors to communicate with other actors, be involved in the acting community, and see upcoming events in the city.

Ideate

Feature Roadmap | Sitemap | User Flows

Feature Roadmap

This is an MVP mobile app, so not all features could be implemented initially. Based on the research findings, I determined which features were most important to include as part of the initial design and which features could wait until a later time for design and implementation. I divided the features into four main categories to determine which features must be included when I started designing.

Must-have features:

  • Account creation

  • Personalized Calendar

  • Educational Resources

  • Daily + Weekly Challenges

  • Activity Tracker

  • Push Notifications

  • Journal Entries

Nice-to-have features:

  • Community Board

  • Upcoming Events

  • Calendar Sync

  • Reminders

Surprising and delightful features:

  • Wishlist

  • Groups

  • Actor Spotlight

Can come later features:

  • AI/Chat Support

  • User Feedback

Site Map and User Flow

I created the mobile app site map to define the daily discipline, journal entries, main navigation, and secondary screens.

The user flows outline the user’s journey in completing the discipline of the day and creating a journal entry. This helped me to identify if there were any gaps in the flows before starting the wireframes.

Design

Low Fidelity Wireframes | Branding and UI Design | High Fidelity Wireframes | Prototype

It was very important to take the time to work on the details while doing the low-fidelity wireframes. I used the user flows and site map to help identify which screens to include.

Creating A Journal Entry

Creating a Profile Page

Completing the Discipline of the Day

Branding and UI Design

Before moving on to high-fidelity designs, I created a logo and identified the color scheme and UI element designs for the mobile app. I wanted to play on two circles with inter-connectivity demonstrating that the acting world is continuously evolving like an actors career. Green and Orange were chosen as the dominant colors in an effort to evoke feelings of growth and empowerment.

Test and Iterate

Usability Testing | Revisions | The Final Prototype

Usability Testing

I conducted a usability test with 5 users ages 30-65. Along with the required tasks, users were asked to evaluate the ease of use, navigation through the app, color and branding, and to identify any usability issues with the app. Users completed 100% of the following tasks:

Success was measured by the following metrics:

  • Task success rate

  • Time to complete each task

  • Ease of use

  • User satisfaction

  • User experience with the App

  • Overall design and aesthetics

Participants were asked to complete the following tasks:

  • Sign up for an Account, pick a plan, and complete the payment process

  • Complete a journal entry

  • Complete the discipline of the day

  • Create a user profile page

Testing Insights:

  • All users successfully completed the tasks without error

  • Feedback was overwhelmingly positive; users appreciated how user friendly the app was

  • Users loved the daily disciplines and could see how useful they would be on a daily/weekly basis

Areas for improvement:

  • Some users wanted to see more images on the app

  • Some users wanted the icons labeled for ease of use

This app is very intuitive! Everything made sense. Every actor should have this!
— User #3

Priority Revisions

There were three areas of weakness noted during the study. Based on those observations, I iterated on the screen designs and made priority revisions.

  1. Made color changes: Changed the color form orange to green and changed the navigation from orange to purple.

  2. Changed the secondary button

  3. Added titles to the navigation

Before

After

The Final Prototype

After extensive research, design, user testing, and iterations, The Actor’s Daily Discipline App is ready! The final prototype has been built and is ready to view.

Final Thoughts

  • This project made me truly understand how important the design process is when creating good user experiences. The organized process helped to guide my design decisions as I worked on the app

  • The feedback from users was overwhelmingly positive. All of the users appreciated the simple interface and loved the features of the app

  • Having a broad research pool made a big difference in gaining insights about experiences, pain points, and wants from an app

  • Using existing design patterns is a huge time save, especially when trying to meet deadlines

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