Creating a product from an idea—that was the challenge. We researched, we analyzed and we made an initial proposal. That was just the beginning. Afterwards, we did that again and again, until we created the best voting and ranking creation system in the world... Easy to say, but more complicated to do. Luckily, we were not alone on our path.
- 2010 to 2013 Proyect:
- TheRanking.com
Sorry, but the website is no longer available :( - My Story:
- Original founding member of this Internet start-up, led all reaearch, UX and visual aspects of the project.
- Head of Design:
- Created from scratch departments for research, UX and visual, including recruitment, hiring, training and day-to-day supervising of the team. Contract and collaborate with external providers.
- Proud of my team:
- Binaria, Beatriz Estremera, Marco Giacomuzzi, Mariana Bolivar.
As Head of Design, my role within the project changed as the project evolved and grew. The first challenge was to generate an idea and validate it.
After conducting an ideatión process with all the stakeholders we confront both, the business and the potential real user with the idea. We dig into users motivated to create listings and show their opinion to a different archetype of users: 'The consumer'.
What motivations and needs the consumer is trying to satisfy through our lists? Maybe purchasing or leisure decisions can be impacted by our lists? Investigating, prototyping, validating, and building with the development team in a startup way, was the challenge.
Voting, creating and sharing. . . Those were the three pillars our proposal was centered on
Vote, create and share. That was our value proposition. The content, design and technology had to get our proposal rolling.
With that mantra, our design work began. Arranging and prioritizing the information on each page. Content is our king.
Converting content into audiovisual material, in order to make users feel the product, more than understand it.
Behind all functionalities, design, and overall service, our main goal was to use lists and user's opinions to bring back "power to the people". Things should be good or bad because WE decide that are good or bad.
After a tremendous amount of effort, this is the result of our work.
Grid: It’s there but you can’t see it...
We thought of a grid that would offer us visual solidity and that would be flexible with the content. It is there, on every page. With it, we found the support, the hierarchy and the order we were looking for.
Interfaces & Interactions
Vote on rankings, add participants, personalize information about them... There was a long list of interactions that were not at all simple, which we worked on in depth in order to create the best interface.
Function and Form Back to Back
Creating rankings and at the same time being a social network only made sense if we could offer full coherence between function and form. We are proud of the tone and of the visual atmosphere we created.
Focus Attention in Order to Convert
Simplicity, cleanness and clarity. We tried to help users so they could make their own decisions. Conversion was an element we did not neglect.
Creating a multi-mechanism product was also among our list of priorities
Working with great professionals is the secret to a job well done. Technology is never an end in and of itself—but the right technology in the best hands is the best way to sign a good job. Starting with paper and a pencil (the best way to start), our days are spent among Axure documents, Fireworks documents, HTML5 documents, CSS3 documents, Less documents, jQuery documents . . . We don’t care what mechanism you utilize. TheRanking.com is there for you to use.
