Mission of the project

An online space that allows users, comprising of 4-5 people to be matched into teams based on their interests/skills from UX Design to Front-End Research. Each team will be provided a prompt provided by the app per month called Monthly Design Challenge, and will also have an alternative option to pick their own projects.

Monthly Design Challenges

Personalized Social Profile

Accessible Group Interaction

Design Community Forum

Who is this app for?

This app is designed for college students majoring in Design, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, or any field interested in launching a design career post-graduation. Whether you're building a professional portfolio or exploring design as a passionate hobby, this platform connects you with a community of like-minded individuals. Ideal for those who value teamwork, efficiency, and shared creativity, it’s perfect for aspiring professionals and hobbyists alike to collaborate, learn, and grow.

What can you do with the projects?

These projects can be used to build your portfolio and get experience that will carry over into your professional career. You can start your own passion projects and look for people with similar interests to really foster the creativity. Network with others through the group collaboration, creating stronger connections. Ask for feedback for your projects and gain recognition through your profile and achievements. Practice and improve your skills in UI/UX and web/app development.

Competitor Analysis

Our platform stands out in the competitive landscape of design tools like Dribbble, Behance, and DailyUI by combining unique features into a collaborative, user-centric experience. Unlike the others, which focus mainly on showcasing individual portfolios, we prioritize group collaboration through customizable profiles, built-in group chats, and project-based challenges.

This not only fosters skill development and networking but also enhances portfolio-building with real-world, team-based projects. Our gamified elements like leaderboards and incentivized achievements further drive engagement, making our app ideal for budding designers seeking growth and connection.

Pixel Pact Users and Social Setting

Social Setting: An online space that allows users (4-5 people) to be matched into teams based on their interests/skills. They have the alternative option to pick their own teams and projects through a discussion forum. Once grouped, users will collaborate on a project prompted by the app. As they work together, the app tracks progress and milestones, allowing users to achieve goals and unlock continued use of the platform after completing their first project.

User Demographics: Our primary demographic is created specifically for College Students that are Design, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, or any major that is interested in joining the design world as a career path post-college. Our secondary demographic are for students that are interested in doing this as a hobby because it is a hobby that they are interested in. Within the scope of these demographics our ideal persona is that users are looking for a community that they are able to feel comfortable being in and that they are dedicated, efficient, and a team player.

Novelity: Our app provides a tailored platform for people interested in the field of HCI. Unlike existing design and developer connection platforms, this app specializes in the HCI field, connecting people who want to collaborate on projects, and enabling portfolio building, networking, and knowledge sharing.

Initial Research

Google form sent out to UCSD students with an interest in UI/UX or web/app development
Sent out form to over 30 people with 23 total responses
Ages of respondents range from 18-22 years old (average age: 20 years old)

Click BELOW for "PixelPact Interest Survey":

Click HERE

Main Concerns

Skill Disparity

Responders are concerned over skill differences and what that could look like in a workspace. This can lead to ill distribution of work and false resume building for those that did not put in the effort.

Identity Theft

The possibility that with first and last name provision, there is the ability to pretend to be someone else, or find information out more personal information of other users.

Toxicity

There is a concern over the behavior of others in the workspace, whether annoyance, or harshness in critique that would lead to hate speech.

Dis-engagement

There may be users that are uninterested in the project and just join, and without consequences or rewards, users may not interact with other teams making it hard for good project outcome.

Key Findings

Most students would use the app for personal interests and/or career advancements

Most responders prioritized chat/text features.

70% of responders stated they would be interested in having progress tracking features and some stand out suggestions (14/23 responses) were:

Bars
Calendar of logged in interaction
Ranking System between teammates
Ranked Ladder

Key Motivators Backed by Research

Empowering User Autonomy and Growth

Drawing from Self-Determination Theory (SDT), our platform promotes user autonomy and competence through user-friendly navigation and personalized project selection. These features cater to intrinsic motivation, enabling users to pursue goals that align with their skills and interests, fostering deeper engagement (Deci & Ryan, 1985).

Building Trust and Collaboration

Social Exchange Theory emphasizes trust and reciprocity, reflected in personalized profiles, community forums, and rateable features. These elements encourage collaboration, accountability, and shared learning experiences, creating a dynamic and engaging community (Homans, 1958).

Gamified Engagement and Skill Development

Incentives like badges and achievements, supported by studies on gamification, retain users through entertainment and goal-setting. By integrating Reinforcement Learning-assisted models, we ensure skill-based team formation for effective portfolio building and collaboration (Guo et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020).

Incentivized Badges and Achievements: Engaging Through Gamification

A study by Zhang et al. (2020) highlights the effectiveness of entertainment-based incentives, such as gamified tasks, in maintaining user engagement and motivation. In our app, badges and achievements are awarded for milestones like project completions and high team ratings, creating a sense of progress and recognition. These rewards foster long-term engagement by combining entertainment with skill development, ensuring users feel consistently motivated to participate and grow within the platform.

Collaborative Group Chats and Goal Trackers: Fostering Communication and Coordination

Guo et al.'s (2020) reinforcement learning-assisted models emphasize the importance of efficient communication for team success. Our app integrates seamless group chats, voice calls, and shared goal trackers, allowing users to plan, collaborate, and share feedback effectively. By combining task alignment tools with intuitive messaging features, we create an environment where teams can work cohesively, mirroring real-world collaborative dynamics.

Customized Profiles and Community Building: Establishing Trust and Belonging

Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (Homans, 1958), personalized profiles foster trust by showcasing users' skills and achievements, enhancing team dynamics. Wenger’s (1998) concept of Communities of Practice underpins our approach to community-building forums, which allow members to share insights and receive peer feedback.

References

Guo, Y., et al. (2020). A reinforcement learning-assisted genetic programming algorithm for team formation problem considering person-job matching. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research.

Homans, G. C. (1958). Social behavior as exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 63(6), 597–606.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press.

Zhang, X., et al. (2020). Incentives for mobile crowd sensing: A survey. Journal of Communications and Networks, 22(1), 14–23.

Process of Visualizing Brand Indentity

Branding Guidelines and Brainstorms

Initial Flow of our mobile application

Prototype #1

Signing up for an account

For our first prototyping, we assigned the users to a specific persona and asked them to act like their assigned roles. By using the Google form, we simulated making the account for our app. On the google form there were questions including their personal information and rate role preferences based on their skills such as Web design, Coding, Frontend development in order to customize their profile have best match.

Team Dashboard

After user creates their profile, users will be randomly assigned to a group based on selected roles and will have access to the team dashboard.

Workspace

Users can coordinate their work hours, schedules, shared goals, deliverables, and submissions through the to-do list or team assignment page. They can also post announcements to stay on track, manage their time effectively, and communicate with teammates to ensure everyone is completing their assigned tasks efficiently.

Feedback

After our prototyping I session, we asked our participants to fill out a survey to express their overall experience of the prototype and how we can improve.

Our team observed that a common piece of feedback was that Notion lacked sufficient user interactions, and due to its wide range of features, users often struggled to stay engaged.

Prototype #2

What we changed:

We decided to move to a more user friendly applications that many are familiar with Figma, Instagram, and Google Sheets. Prioritized on enhancing the user experience when transitioning from one platform to another. Showing more of our prototype than just talking to give the users the fullest experience

Google sheets

Based on the feedback recieved from Prototype 1, our team used google sheets in order to provide more interactive options for users.

We also added persona board to the google sheets so users can make a profile based on their persona assigned to have better simulation when prototyping our app.

Chatrooms

Our team used Instagram dm function to show how randomly assigned users can communicate with each other and introduce themselves/ set up a meeting time to start on the project.

Ratings

Ratings: After the team is done with the final project users can rate their teammates and give rating out of five stars and also write optional additional comments.

Our Key Features

PixelPact COGS 123 - Wireframing - Figma 2024-12-02 11-53-40.mp4

Personalized Profiles

Out app provides customizable profiles for users to be able to find mutuals, display their badges, and be able to showcase their role and personal portfolio or other personal designs.

Features:

Connections

Badges
Portfolio
Posts
Reviews

PixelPact COGS 123 - Wireframing - Figma 2024-12-09 15-43-08.mp4

Badge Customization

Within the app there are badges distributed based off:

Interactions
Number of Reviews
Engagement
etc

This is to encourage consistent return for users to the app

Recording 2024-12-10 225852.mp4

Interactive Leaderboard

Monthly:

Showcasing team accomplishments, the Team Leaderboard highlights ongoing projects and detailed contributions, fostering friendly competition and collaboration.

All Time:

The Personal User Leadership board emphasizes individual growth, displaying portfolios, completed projects, and accumulated achievements to celebrate long-term dedication and skill mastery.

Recording 2024-12-10 225658.mp4

Monthly Challenges

Every month, fresh prompts rotate around different themes, ensuring users have new and diverse challenges to engage with. These prompts include detailed information such as an overview, deliverables, target audience, type, keywords, and related images. Users can also view links, company details, and comments, fostering a dynamic, interactive platform that encourages continuous skill development and creative exploration.

Recording 2024-12-10 225753.mp4

Design Highlights

You can explore past team projects for inspiration and case study analysis, filtered by categories like web design, product branding, and UX. View imagery, team and company details, and the most liked team contest designs. This feature allows you to analyze successful past projects and see what resonates within the design community, providing valuable insights to inform your own creative work.

Recording 2024-12-10 230526.mp4

Community Forum

Don’t like the design challenge topic? Look for projects on the discussion board!
Pitch project ideas and look for people to work with
Ask questions and share tips with others going into design/development
Get feedback from others regarding your projects
Share new insights and knowledge with the community!

Recording 2024-12-10 230732.mp4

Group Collaborations

Chat includes:
Direct Messaging
Group Messaging
Audio & Video Calling
Calendar Scheduling

Appendix:

Extra information and resources to see our working process and the steps we took to get we are now

Phase I

Phase II

Phase III

Citations:

Chernyak-Hai, L., & Rabenu, E. (2018). The new era workplace relationships: Is social exchange theory still relevant? Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 11(3), 390-399. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2018.58

Deci, E. L., Olafsen, A. H., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). Self-determination theory in work organizations: The state of a science. *Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4*, 19-43. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032516-113108

Guo, Y., Yang, Y., & Liu, J. (2023). A reinforcement learning-assisted genetic programming algorithm for team formation problem considering person-job matching. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.04022

Oleson, A., Solomon, M., & Ko, A. J. (2020). Computing Students’ Learning Difficulties in HCI Education. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 22–22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376149

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2016). What is a community of practice? In *Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge* (pp. 1-14). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2879-3_1

Zhang, X., Zhang, Y., & Liu, J. (2016). Incentives for mobile crowd sensing: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(1), 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2015.2415528

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