My Product Development
Our products and society have to constantly evolving, whether it be from technical advances or products to improve human life styles. The reason why it has to evolve is because it is imperfect, there is always something that can be done to make it better than it was yesterday. During my time in high school, I was learning to draw. After my journey through this experience, I realized just how little was taught about how to think about drawing to overall improve. When learning to draw, everything online and in class only encourage exercises and the mere continuation of stroking your pencil or brush across a canvas, nothing was actually covered on how to think about making something that doesn’t already exist.
Since most artists only discover this after the entire journey, it would be a faster learning experience if the thought process behind it was taught more vividly. Back then, in my mind, nothing would have been more vivid than having the ability to ask questions to professionals. Another aspect of learning to draw is the conflicts in the middle of the journey. Most professionals forget about what struggles they have had when learning to draw, hence there are things that cannot be taught by them. To not only be able to chat with professionals, but also with other fellow amateurs will be a very useful resource. A forum or community of artists coming together, tagged with how much knowledge they have could improve the creative artist community drastically. As visuals in entertainment and well as merchandise takes a huge role, it would be incredibly beneficial to the economy to have artists grow at a faster pace. In the past decade, a new form of art has been made, attracted new artists from every medium, digital painting. As the artist community is growing, having this platform will prove to be better now than ever.
Analysis for Success
The PEST Analysis is a basic template that can check all the boxes for meeting requirements for a successful start-up. The PEST Analysis is made up of the aspects of Political standings, Economical gain, Social/Cultural necessities, and Timing for creation:
P- As of now, there is nothing political that prohibits this platform nor promotes it.
E- The Japanese anime scene is successful and is well watched world wide with a well established fan base. This has also inspired people to become artists and adapt to the anime scene as we have seen in the past couple of years. Now, as even Korean manhwa (visual comic style story telling) makes its way into getting animated series, it is clear that Japanese/Korean anime will grow even bigger. Because of amateur publishing platforms like LINE Webtoons, creating manga or manhwa is a very plausible career choice without much investment. My platform will attract artists and provide them with resources that in the past, seemed to be only for those who decided on a definite and grueling career in manga/manhwa/animation. My platform, with amateur publishing platforms will have a parallel that will lead to success.
S- In the past, embracing Otaku culture was niche, but it is not so much so anymore. It is so incredibly popular, that thousands of anime conventions are being held world wide with millions attending them. It is no surprise that it has become a main form of entertainment.
T- As you can even publish without an editor, post your drawings online, and draw digitally, and even sculpt in virtual reality, this is as good of a time as any to make this as possible.
Competition
Yes, universal platforms like Reddit or youtube have similar capabilities, but a new platform that is EXCLUSIVE to artists, that focuses on helping artists with current problems will be more efficient than other sites.
As stated above, other platforms are either succeeding in one aspect of learning and lacking in another, or overall lacking. My platform will provide users with the high quality interactive learning as well as practical information simultaneously.
User Interviews
User interviews are one of the most important aspects for further evolving products and ideas. It reminds us that the product is about the user rather than the developer; what may be a high demand for the developer might not be for other users. As a result, directly getting feedback from experienced users is invaluable. Given the value of user interviews, it is of our utter most interest as developers to ask unbiased questions that would provide us with an answer that is as meaningful as possible. Some of my constructive questions used:
What problems did you encounter during your time learning to draw?
What do you think could have sped up your process of learning?
The questions above are incredibly simple and left substantial room for the interviewee to voice their opinions. This will cause the responses to return as constructive. Questions that return “yes” or “no” will provide little actual use. Examples of unsuccessful questions:
Would you like a resource where you can ask professionals for support?
Has asking questions to other artists benefit you in any way?
Given the subject, I interviewed artists. In this case, it mattered little whether or not the artist was slightly experienced or professional. The responses I received, to me, were surprising. It seems that all artists run into completely different obstacles. These sets of user interviews informed me to focus more on providing a more hands-on and interactive learning experience.
How the Foundation was Built
In order to have a working free environment where even professionals cooperate with amateurs free-of-charge, there has to be benefits to both sides. I have taken the career elements of Youtube and community building elements like the karma system of Reddit to create a foundation where professionals were building their reputation by helping amateurs and amateurs learn better by supporting professionals.
Every great idea or skill takes other great ideas and combines it with their own. By taking these two elements together, it has created a new function that took advantages of positive elements from other products. This is another way to add wood to the fire of ideas.
Overall Aftermath
The objective of this product is to improve the learning process of artists in both speed and quality. Even today, there are experienced artists that still lack knowledge in certain areas of their work. The world of artists need an extreme revamp. I believe this product can accomplish this. By creating a platform with these features, both amateurs and professionals will work together to expand the world of art past the limits of being exclusively for those who dedicate all of their time towards their career in art. Of course this won’t fix everything right away, but it is a good first step towards improvement by providing a gateway to aspiring artists. Proven by user interviews experiments, this is clearly the most efficient way to improve in art. There are other subjects that can also adapt to this concept. I’m sure that apps in the future will use this concept. I mostly have to thank the user interviews. At the beginning, the project was very basic and had no outstanding features. After the time spent gathering information from users, the final product has the ability to revolutionize the way we look at education as a whole.
The Product
The basic concept and design will look something like this
In total, there are 5 tabs that can be used by the user. The “Learn” tab consists of beginning information regarding how the app/website works and how it will benefit both the professional and the amateur artists. It will also include rules and basic information. The “Teach” tab is where the professionals navigate to start building their reputation. By answering other’s questions, you can build reputation based on how good your assistance is, decided by who asked the question. Companies will seek out high reputation for hire and profiles with high reputation will also be spotted easier. Now, the “Ask” tab is how the amateur can reach out to the experienced. By asking here, within the hour, your question will be answered or a professional will contact you for further assistance. “Your Profile” is how you can see your own profile. This enables you to see your reputation, your previous posts, and featured artworks. The “Settings” tab will allow you to adjust your website/app settings as well as filter what type of posts you will want to see when browsing.
The following is an additional example of the website/app of the tab “Teach”
Why is it important to make this wire frame? The wire frame gives you a visual representation of how the app will look and function. This will give insight on how the app will be and more importantly, how it will further improve. Future features will be implemented based on how users use this program. Most of the process of adding new features are done as updates after the final product has been released. The product will never be complete until it completely satisfies every user’s needs.
