Heppi
This project was an opportunity to help a company to build its services from the ground up. We went from the Business Model Canvas up until the late prototype. In this project, I participate with the company team from the first ideation meetings until the validation of the service with users. I did user research to help with the business decisions, created user-centered solutions, and tested prototypes in different stages of fidelity.
OVERVIEW
Graduation parties are a big thing in Brazil. The achievement of a college degree is something celebrated along with friends and family at a big party. A lot of student’s cohort start saving money and planning the party since the first year of their course.
Heppi is a fintech startup specialized in financial organization for these graduating events. It helps the students to plan the party and collect money safely and transparently with a simple and easy-to-use app and web-based system.
In this project, I was involved from the first ideation meetings until the last validation with users. I did user research to help with the business design, creating user-centered solutions, and testing prototypes in different stages of fidelity.
USERS
1 - Undergraduate Student Cohorts
2 - Professional Party Planners
DESIGN PROCESS
The company team presented me with a brief benchmark and some ideas in our first meeting. We began the process of filling a Business Model Canvas to start aligning our understanding of the company's overall service and functioning. After finishing the first canvas draft we started an in-depth benchmark to help us in future ideation sessions and run a survey to gather quantitative data on users.
The data we got on the survey was the base for the interview topics and collaborative design workshops.
In the interview sessions with the students, we had a turning point. They had problems not just managing all the cohort money, but planing the parties. So, our first idea was just to help student cohorts to manage their money for their party. However, during this interview step, we found that the role of the professional party planner is fundamental in the Brazilian graduation party market. We recognized we just found another kind of user to help. The company service portfolio grew bigger, to help students to find party planners. And, help party planners to sell their services. Now, those party planners would be able to post celebrating experiences with prices, the number of participants, options of food, and other important information.
In order to help us design this party planner marketplace, Heppi hired a professional party planner as a business consultant, who brought us a lot of insights from this particular field.
The Heppi team conducted three Collaborative Design Workshops, one with party planners and two with students. During these sessions we used Card Sorting to define hierarchies for the Information Architecture, we validate some of our ideas and ideate new possibilities along with users. These sessions helped us creating personas and moodboards as well.
After having all the users' input I started designing the User Journey, User Flow, Sitemap, and Wireframes. Afterward, I made a very low-fidelity prototype with the wireframes to validate the User Flow and the Information Architecture. This allowed us to design the visual mockups based on the test results and the moodboard.
UX Designer
UX Strategist
UX Researcher
About
I create data-driven and strategy-oriented solutions for digital products and services through observing human behavior, along with cultural and environmental aspects.
As a student, I enrolled in courses on Social Communication, Interaction Design, and Computer Science; as my bachelor's, graduate specialization, and master's, subsequently. Nowadays, I am finishing my Ph.D. in Media and Communication.
During 2019 and 2021, I was working as a UX Designer and Researcher at the Behavior, Information, and Technology Lab (BITLab) at Michigan State University, USA.

TOOLSET
Adobe XD
Figma
Axure
Google Analytics
Miro
HTML + CSS
MySQL
SKILLS
Heuristic Analysis
Rapid Ethnography
Usability Testing
Interview
Focus groups
Card Sorting
Survey
Scrum
DELIVERABLES
Personas
Wireframe
Low and High Fidelity Prototype
User Journey
User Stories
Competitive Analysis
User Flow
Taxonomy
A/B testing
Projects
Heppi | Website and Mobile App
Heppi helps students' cohorts to collect money safely and transparently with a simple and easy-to-use app.
In this project, I was involved in the first ideation meetings. I did user research to help with the business design, creating user-centered solutions, and testing prototypes in different stages of fidelity.
Fintech startup specialized in financial organization for college graduation events.
Baterias Moura | Website
I had the opportunity to create the company’s new website, going from a merely institutional portal to a business touching point. We had created an online service helping end-users to ask for a new battery to be delivered on-site and sellers to find the right product for each model.
Baterias Moura is the largest battery manufacturer in Latin America.
Pinche | Mobile App
An app to help researchers, professors, and students to find academic events; and organize their calendars. The secondary idea was to promote meetings between academics with similar interests in large events.
This app was designed and prototyped until the high fidelity stage as a project for the CESAR.EDU graduate specialization program.
An app to help academics to organize their events calendar.
Earth Defender | Online Game
Earth Defender is a fun game based on Phoenix, an Atari game from 1982. However, instead of a flat surface, we bent the ground, making the player defend our round planet. The nice Atari nostalgia, with a little twist on the game physics. This game was released on the web (2013-2018) and was a project for the CESAR.EDU graduate specialization program.
Online game developed as an Atari tribute.
Forum Notifications | Mobile App
This project is a notification app to help collaborative learning and work from students of blended-learning courses in the public system from Pernambuco.
The app was developed along with the Cognitive Sciences and Educational Technologies research group at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.
An app for collaborative learning on education social media.
Contact
© 2020 by João Marcelo Ferraz