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ux-ui service design
Immigrating to a new country is challenging—especially for first-generation Chinese immigrants in Canada, who often turn to fragmented platforms or lack ongoing personalized support from traditional institutions. CommWeave, a digital-first, community-driven support hub, addresses these gaps by centralizing culturally relevant resources, providing real-time guidance, and fostering parenting-driven support networks. This streamlined approach ensures a smoother transition, better access to local services, and stronger connections for individuals and families adapting to their new environment.
View prototype →(To enjoy a high-quality audio-visual experience, please click this link)
Picture this...
You arrive in Canada as a new immigrant, facing language and cultural barriers with few friends to rely on. Daily challenges, big or small, become overwhelming.
Where to find reliable support quickly, and get socialization chances with the local Chinese community?
You navigate scattered and generic information on existing platforms, exploring little by little.
Early in the transition, having ethnic ties within the local community is vital to gaining help and support from people sharing similar backgrounds, making it easier to adapt to a new life.
However, It is hard to quickly find...
How might we
Help first-generation Chinese immigrants build connections and access support within their community quickly and easily?
Methodology
Intended users
Triangulated research identified they are new arrivals needing guidance and established residents seeking accessibility and community connection.
Also, these New Chinese immigrant
1
Lack diverse and reliable support channels but are eager for quick, direct guidance from their ethnic group.
2
Have a strong focus on parenting and find it is easier to connect with others with parenting-related activities.
3
Look for Mandarin-speaking business owners offering cost-effective service to simplify daily tasks.
SO...
New first-generation immigrants need a parenting-centred socialization platform to connect with their community and businesses which have a common background.
Solutions - 3 main ways
1. Empower users to discover resources confidently by managing information wisely, finding friends quickly, and joining groups easily.
2. Build connections with culturally relevant, parenting-focused events and support networks to foster belonging.
3. Simplify accessing and offering essential services with an intuitive way.
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ecosystem
Various institutions collaborate to deliver targeted services and value.
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5 desired features
optimize usability with iterations
Detailed feedback from card sorting, freelisting, time-on-task measurements, and heuristic evaluations, along with interviews and emoticon scores, revealed user satisfaction with the prototype's effectiveness. However, it also highlighted areas for improvement, including accessibility, color contrast, reliability, section refinement, terminology clarification, and adding activity reviews.
USER story with COMMWEAVE
“I believe that life could be much easier and happier with CommWeave when moving to this new country. It can help me make friends with other families in activities naturally and provide invaluable resources and suggestions for me and my family with a smooth transition.”
-Emily Liu
Business Canvas & Marketing
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To guide users from initial awareness of the app to become loyal customers who actively contribute to the community, a marketing funnel strategy would be implemented for seamless user engagement.
Channels to support this journey include:
• community engagement events
• partnerships with local businesses
• influencer marketing
• content marketing
• social media campaigns
• community ambassadors
• a referral program
• localized SEO
• press releases and media coverage
• email marketing...
takeaways
Iterative Design is Key: User feedback guided every stage, refining the platform into a practical solution.
Prioritization Over Perfection: Two features were postponed to focus on core functionality
CommWeave is a parenting-centred socialization platform connecting first-generation Chinese immigrants with their community and local businesses, fostering family-based support networks for smoother integration.
First-generation Chinese immigrants benefit from group assistance, easing their integration through diverse parenting activities that nurture offline connections, build friendships, and foster online engagement.
Chinese business partners gain targeted exposure, boosting credibility and driving profits.
The app’s parenting-centric strategy attracts strong family engagement, appealing to Chinese merchants as an investment opportunity. This support effective activity sponsorship and increase advertising revenue for the platform.
Identifying Opportunity and Initial Design Sprint
In this phase, I identified an opportunity for design intervention: facilitating easy access to ethnic social support and enhancing sustainable networking for first-generation Chinese immigrants. I completed a design sprint, following an industry-standard process from Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype to Test, adhering to SREB guidelines. The research included Literature Review, Observational Research, Competitive Analysis, and Interviews, leading to potential solutions and laying the foundation for the project proposal, objectives, user definitions, desired functionality, tech requirements, and the next research plan.
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Deepening Research and Developing Information Architecture
The project advanced with deeper research and refined insights, leading to a summarized version of personas and user journeys based on the comprehensive versions from Phase 1. Using methods like Card Sorting, Freelisting, Semi-structured Interviews, and Literature reviews, I tested assumptions and explored parties' relationships within the ecosystem. This phase aimed to understand party cooperation, develop key functions, and validate usability, providing direction for further platform iterations.
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Development of Prototyping and Iterations
This phase involved four to five iterations, including working prototypes, content plans 2.0 which detailed the rationale for section organization and content selection, and user experience validation through Interviews and Emoticon Scores. I established a visual design system and conducted further tests like Time-on-Task Measurements to assess user efficiency. Each design iteration was clearly illustrated, and the updated schedule included a marketing plan to ensure the platform reached targeted users.
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