Trees.app tailors personalized plans to help college students manage all aspects of their college life.
In the spring of 2023, I joined the Trees.app startup as a UX intern and then UX designer shortly after. While working there, I worked on many projects, one of which was the launch of a series of new Trees apps. My role as the lead and sole UX designer on this project was to design new Trees apps that were branded for their partnering universities.
Check out Trees.app.
ROLE
User Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design, Branding
RESULTS
Awarded best user-centric design
Presented to UX leaders at Paramount, Apple & Sol
PROGRAMS
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
DURATION
6 weeks
💡 The Problem
Trees.app wanted to create new Trees-branded apps for the universities they partner with to provide more tailored experiences to students.
A key question and challenge we tackled was how to keep the Trees ideology, tools, and branding while also maintaining the desires and branding of the Universities.
Design Challenge
How might we brand the university apps while keeping the goals of Trees.app and partnering schools?
The Process
This was a large scale project that was fluid in structure in plan when we started out. In order to efficiently tackleÂ
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Research university Brand Guidelines
Research existing University apps
Ideate rebranded Trees apps
Validate with partnering universities
Present to stakeholders
Hand-off to Developers
Post on App Store – Design Carousels
Initial Research
Branding Guidelines
In an effort to maintain our goal of aligning with University desires, we decided our first key step was to research and document University Branding Guidelines to use in the apps.
Refined
Project Goals:
Adhere to University guidelines
Maintain Trees.app essence and features
Quickly approve & launch new apps
Original Trees.app
Trees.app Screens
We referenced the original Trees.app screens and decided to maintain the same basic structure for pages.
Original Trees.app
Design Systen
University Rebranding
Design Systems
University of Manitoba
St Mary’s University
St Francis Xavier University
Dalhousie University
Hi-fidelity
The Result
With the finished hi-fi prototypes, it was time to present the designs to universities for approval and then stakeholders for funding. I was tasked with creating straightforward slide decks as quickly as possible.
Final Steps
App Carousels
After development, I was fortunate enough to participate in the final launches of these university apps by designing the carousels that would appear in the app store. I had to research and design for different screen sizes across Apple, Android, and tablet devices.
Reflection
Working at a startup was a new experience that provided me with invaluable insights and skills. The fast-paced, agile environment honed my ability to set and meet tight deadlines while sometimes working independently with less supervision. This experience required adaptability, as I often dealt with regular edits, redos, and unexpected deadlines. The most difficult challenge I faced was learning to cater to client desires, prioritizing their needs over my own design preferences.
Collaborating closely with a team of developers and other professionals taught me the importance of teamwork and gave me new real-world experience. I feel honored to have contributed significantly to the launch of these new branded apps, it was a very rewarding experience!