Lance App

 Lance is a freelancer utility app which packs features that can help in making daily lives of the designed as a part of an academic team project. 

Team Lead: Maaz Gundagi | Team: Maaz Gundagi, Aarish Gilani, Namrata Rane, Shakir Shaikh, Roselle Panganiban, Qian Galvin. The project was ranked 1st in class amongst all the submissons for this assignment in our User Interface Design class. 

View the live prototype.

More about the project

Lance is a utility app designed for creative and independent freelancers.
Lance is designed to have a diversity of innovative features covering project management, communication, and productivity systems and solutions inspired by developer communities.

Lance stands out as a one-stop destination for managing project life cycles while also giving freelancers the freedom, confidence, and independence to establish better interactions between them and their respective clients.

“Focused, controlled, quality solutions.” 

Look & Feel
Lance has a default dark mode with pink and blue shades scattered across UI creating a pleasant, sleek look .

Logo
Lance logo is a paper “L”, folded and slightly cut-up to demonstrate a freelance designer's creativity and service. The fonts Roboto and Open Sans are sans serifs, meant for legibility and a friendly experience.

Target market
Primary market: Lance is a lite app intended for any independent freelancer and their respective clients, but Lance is most especially targeted toward independent creative workers. The app is most appropriate for freelancers who are tech-savvy and progressive thinkers. These freelancers may also: not have as much work experience, require many focused and controlled solutions for their projects, have a general knowledge of design in relation to the tech industry, and have less experience with navigating and sustaining healthy client relationships.
A secondary market can be developers with existing or growing skills in digital design. Considering that a developer audience generates a high income, developers looking to get into independent freelance design/creative work would typically value an app which amplifies their ability to create quality work through solutions which focus on their productivity, time management and organization skills, and maintaining healthy client relationships. 

Brand Persona

Key Features of the product

File - X

File Control (Collapsed)

File Control (Scrolled Down Expanded)

1. Exchange and control files securely and efficiently through Lance’s “File X” and “File Control” systems

“File X” is a secure file exchange system for each project with custom access management. Facilitated between the freelancer and client..
“File Control” is an integrated version control system that allows back-up/retrieval of older file versions for the freelancer.

Doc Builder Intro

Doc Editor

Doc Browser

2. A robust Lance Tool Kit for productivity, project management, and plenty of cloud storage:

“Document Builder” is a editor with general spelling and grammar check while editing a document. It's designed to be developed in a way such that it provides suggestions for best practices, such as verbiage/ structure for legal documents.

“Lance MarkUp” is a sophisticated commenting and annotation solution for reviewing graphics, documents, videos, and similar file types.
Templates for crafting professional looking proposals, NDAs and contracts, etc.
Integrated cloud data storage with options to import existing files from Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. (Additional purchases required.)

 Key User Benefits

Innovative app conceptualized FOR and BY designers and developers

Lance is a progressive bridge between two industries which are rapidly growing and intermingling with one another. The app remains cognizant of both challenges and opportunities of freelancers and boasts a supportive Lance community online for questions, suggestions, etc.

Establishes better, healthier, and professional boundaries throughout a project’s life cycle

Instead of a communication hub, a fully collaborative workspace, a scrum or kanban board, or a competitive platform for recruiting freelancers, Lance’s primary mission is bettering the quality of the freelancer’s working relationships with their clients
Tighter, custom admin controls through features like File X and File Control give freelancers more freedom with how they manage files with their clients in an autonomous yet transparent way
Communication channels are also allowed customization (e.g. message limits per markup period) so as to minimize information overload and keep conversations to-the-point, which facilitates better communication overall

A focused productivity environment; attractive to new and seasoned freelancers alike

Packed with all the essentials, the Lance Tool-Kit and the supporting file control and storage exchange systems make this app an incredibly powerful productivity tool while being very intuitive, easy to use, and an overall pleasant user experience.

Real Testimonials from User Testing:

“Clean and organized.”
“Great concept. A very nice experience with the interface.”
“The number of features packed in the application [are] surprising!”
(On File X) “A great idea. Can prevent unauthorized usage of in-progress work.”

Link to our InVision prototype