Background

Sinovation Ventures is a leading venture capital in China, and its internal investors use a web-based platform called BPM to view fund details, market trends, and transfer internal documents on a daily basis. After joining Sinovation Ventures as a design intern, the company was planning to build a mobile platform to make it convenient for partners to follow fund progress anytime, anywhere.
I was a summer intern, completing the most important parts of the business overview and fund statistics in a limited time and set up a new visual concept.

Problem

Problems they saw:

• The content is complicated and the dashboard is extensive, so it cannot be directly relocated to the App. 
• The needs of partners and other users are different, we need to understand the user needs and redesign the user flow. I need to design brand-new mobile dashboard for partner team.

After getting the requirements from PM, I started to do some preliminary research on the web end and found the following problems currently exist.

My task: start from Overview and Fund modules which partners pay the highest attention to, and redesign the visual system of the new App

Problems I saw:

👉 Problem 1: These two modules are at different tiers

Fund is located on the first level page, while Overview is inside the second level page, but the two modules should be merged together on the mobile version.

👉 Problem 2: Too many filters make the page hierarchy unclear

There are many filters on the web side to control what is displayed on the page, but these filters have a vague hierarchy, and a panel is controlled by multiple filters.

👉 Problem 3: Partners and investors have different priorities

During the assignment conversation with the PM, I learned that the partners will take a more macro perspective on the project and the investors will follow the project in detail in their respective departments.

Interviews

Interview with investors and partners in the company respectively, for daily priorities, usage habits and user needs. Then double-checked the product requirements with PM, explored the information hierarchy and userflow for mobile.

Design

Information architecture

Redesigned information architecture for mobile users, making filters more intuitive and no overlapping filters to interfere with userflow.

Iteration

With a clear direction and all the problems I needed to solve, I started to visualize my ideas into digital wireframes. In addition, I conducted several design iterations through rapid user testing and found the optimal solution.

Design exploration

Redesigned the visual layout of the BPM App to maintain visual consistency with the web end.
The main color of the App was blue, and a small amount of gradient color is added to the icon and bar, which look more technological and more representative of the company's niche.

Final design

The final way of the web-to-mobile end, while maintaining the original structure, and streamlined certain information for the target group.

Hi-Fi interfaces

Includes design of fault page and occupancy  pages, as well as the different filter status and page unfolding status of each page.

Reflection

Takeaways

Gained the operational process of the venture capital. During the conversations with investors and partners, I got to know the working process of the investment industry and had a preliminary knowledge of the financial field.
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The new understanding of B2B projects is to know the users from zero. Because B2B projects are facing specific users whose mindset is different from the public, it is necessary to keep a humble mind to understand their workflow.
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Improved the way of communication with project managers. As an intern, I couldn't fully control the project, but if there is an idea, I usually take the initiative to present it and convince the PM with sufficient arguments, so that design thinking could be leveraged into the project more efficiently.