Champions Round
Asset Reorganization
Duration:
Tools:
Project:
Role:
March ~ April 2023
Figma, Notion
Champions Round
UX Researcher
Towards the end of my internship at Champions Round, I was tasked with redesigning the content and branding file; a Figma file that facilitated the creation and management of graphics and other digital assets used by the content and marketing team. This file featured a branding guide, playgrounds (where users could “play” around and create designs) and contained most of the files and images that were shared on the company social media. It was my goal to create a new organizational system that emphasized a better on-boarding experience for novices, an intuitive design that minimized time spent finding assets, and a way to store and manage all digital assets used in the graphic design of the company’s social media posts.
Context
The Content and Branding file was a file used primarily by the design and content teams to create graphics and other brand related assets for social media. This file featured a branding guide for graphics, pages for deliverables (such as completed giveaway graphics, social media banners and talk-show logos), free spaces called playgrounds where used could create graphics, and an archive for legacy files. Since most of the assets used were created in this file, it ended up housing a majority of all assets used by the company.
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However, the file was disorganized, and some assets were hard to find or were hidden somewhere in a playground. I was tasked with finding a better way to organize the files so that assets were easier to find and novice users could navigate the file easier.
Problem Statement
The problem statement is as follows: The content and branding Figma file is lacking in its navigation, organization of assets and is difficult for novice users to understand.
Research
To start off my research, I consulted James Hollan - my professor at UC San Diego - for books concerning organizational systems. He personally recommended The Discipline of Organization by Robert Glushko.
The book contained tons of information concerning organization systems at all levels and even a guide to creating an organizational system. Although there was a ton of information in the book, the main insights were as follows:​
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Three tiers of organizing systems
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Identifying the desired interactions with resources
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Determine which organizing principles can enable those interactions
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Deciding how to store and manage resources according to those principles.
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Accessibility
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Don’t design implement interaction that some people can’t perform
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Transform certain resources to make it more accessible for people who don’t understand it in its original form
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Information organization vs information retrieval
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More effort put into organization on the way in, the more effectively it can be retrieved, and vice versa
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Identification of pain points
To better understand the biggest problems that plagued the Content and Branding file and with my extensive prior use of the file, I brainstormed some pain points:​
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Hard to find specific components
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Have to scour several pages to find specific component
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ex. flames for background, DD assets
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Hard to find specific graphics
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Can be unsure which ones are the “final” version without checking slack
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Lots of overlap between logos, IG post slides and the playgrounds
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Can make the entire file laggy, especially on bad computers (like my laptop)
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Some pages are outdated
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Moodboard, app elements, redundant graphics that have already been used or phased out
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Asset Categorization​
And as per Glushko's recommendations on categorization of items-to-be-organized, I also categorized all the assets on the file into the following categories:​
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Branding
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Gamemodes
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Talk shows
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Social media graphics
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Social media banners
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Graphic templates
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Youtube thumbnails
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Youtube overlays
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In-app assets
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Misc. components
Initial Sitemap and Sidebar Design
My initial proposal for the organization of the Content and Branding file includes the default cover page and branding guidelines, along with the playgrounds and archive.
The proposed changes include content team resources and design team resource pages. These pages would make it easy for users to find the exact assets they are looking for due to the categories listed.
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To the right is a quick view of what the proposed system would look like as a sidebar on Figma.
Interviews
To determine if the new organization system was usable, I interviewed the two employees who used the Content and Branding file the most. ​
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First, I tasked both users with 3 simple navigational tasks. Following an observation period, I then asked them questions concerning both the task, and their preferences when it came to navigating the file. The main insights were as follows:
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Both users prefer searching to finding
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Searching for things meant that components were key.
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Guides on Figma, including components and alignments.
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Instructions for templates
Other improvements
Another important idea that Robert Glushko wrote about in his book was proper descriptions for Assets. Since Figma lacked a file descriptor, I created a small file description system that would allow for users to better understand assets without having to track down the original creators.
Final Proposal
The final sitemap includes the original cover page, branding guides, playgrounds and archives, but with the addition of content team resources pages, where thumbnails, templates and anything that can be used on the company social media are stored. For components, I proposed the use of a Figma library to make it easier to create, store and utilize smaller digital assets.
Concluding Thoughts
My goal for this project was to create a better organization system, both for storing assets and to create a better on-boarding experience for novice Figma users. I believe my proposal addresses most of the pain points I discussed, and I hope that a full implementation would benefit everyone involved in the Content and Branding file.
Being my first UX project that wasn't related to simply creating or modifying an iPhone app, this experience was new but very interesting for me. Not only did I get to utilize a ton of my UX research knowledge I learned at UC San Diego, but I was also able to connect with one of my professors and learn something new about organizational systems. It was super interesting to apply my knowledge to a different medium, and really opened my eyes to creating user experiences around everyday life.
Although I did not get to see if the entire proposal was implemented or not due to the end of my internship, I do believe I raised the right concerns and brought up some suggestions that would be added at some point in the future. If I had more time, I definitely would have loved to do some usability testing with a prototype to see how the members of the content team would have navigated the file, so I could adjust where certain pages would go to better follow Fitt's law and reduce friction.