Aperture is a web application that leverages AI systems to help companies identify new market and innovation opportunities through problem identification. It does this by scanning millions of documents, finding problems within those documents, and grouping common problems across the marketplace.
When I began working at Aperture (then Artemis Intelligence), it was a great group of people with a cause, looking for a design direction. I came in and did a series of workshops to establish the company vision, which helped determine the direction for features and designs.
AFFINITY BRAINSTORMING: All of the company came together to determine the application direction.
CONTINUUMS: This approach allowed us to determine the look, feel, and the types of users we felt would use the app.
We needed to determine who exactly would use this application. I recruited potential users and performed a series of interviews targeting innovation management roles to discover who might actually use the application. From this, we built out loose personas for our target audience.
USER RESEARCH: Using the findings from initial user research, we determined the target user types.
USER TYPES: Derived from the user research.
To have an initial structure, I worked closely with development to determine the best framework for where we could start building concepts and prototypes to test and implement. We began with the Ant Design System, then switched over to Google Material for flexibility.
MATERIAL DESIGN STRUCTURE: This was an early wireframe based on the material design language.
WIth the unique interface came new challenges. To be more flexible with the intersection of design and development, my team and I built an atomic design system library that could be used in wireframe and prototype designs that were recreated by development in React. We called this design system Apex.
ATOMS: These were the basic design atoms used to build the molecules.
MOLECULES: These were the molecular designs that were used to build organisms and templates.
Once a direction was established, we brought in additional resources to work on the visual direction. This allowed us to move away from the Google Material limitations and explore a more unique interface.
TEMPLATE: This was the template used to build a consolidation of problem data.
When I began working at the company, the company was Artemis Intelligence with the Aperture tool. This caused a lot of confusion with users, so we obtained the Aperture.ai URL and renamed our company to reflect the tool. The company president, directors, and my design team then worked closely to develop a brand guide and new website.
MARKETING: Revamped Aperture.ai site.
