BASCA
BASCA is a workflow management tool tailored for the working actor
End to End Application
Role:
UX/UI Designer
UX Researcher
Tools:
Figma
G-suite
Duration:
1 month
Background
I worked as an actor for years in the entertainment industry. Fresh out of college and newly signed with an agent, I had no idea how to manage my career with the large influx of emails, bookings and auditions on my plate. I wanted to discover if other actors had this same problem and if they did; how could I help them?
The Problem
Actors have to independently manage and track their auditions, emails and bookings without error but have no way to easily streamline this process.
The Solution
An platform tailored to the acting industry that allows the actor to categorize and track priority emails while syncing important dates to their calendars.
How did we get here?
1. Research
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2.Ideation
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3.Prototyping
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4. Usability Testing
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5. Iteration
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1. Research • 2.Ideation • 3.Prototyping • 4. Usability Testing • 5. Iteration •
Market Research
While there are currently tools for musicians, talent representatives and manager’s to streamline their administrative work and contract negotiations, a product designed for the individual actor has yet to be created.
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Asana is highly efficient in streamlining workflow management with a vast array of tools for teams in a corporate setting. While this could technically be applied to the entertainment industry, it does not account for the nuances and functions of how agents and actors carry out their business.
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Stagent widens its scope to both music and entertainment, but is focused on streamlining only the talent representative’s workflow while still primarily focusing on the music industry.. its This product gives insight into what is important on the agent’s end. Stagent focuses on the booking process and how agents move through this. In parallel, we can analyze how an actor would need a similarly practical and streamlined process for managing their own bookings.
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Gigwell allows for streamlined communications between musicians and their agents, but is tailored to the ebbs and flows of the music industry. With this product, we can take cues of how to structure communication between an artist and their representative, but tailor it to entertainment instead of music.
Taking a look at these products, we took inspiration for the practical and structured pathways they create in trying to streamline workflow for their users. There is an opportunity here to create a product with features inspired by these existing products, but tailored specifically to the working actor’s needs.
I interviewed 7 working actors between the ages of 24-30 over zoom.
user interviews
We wanted to discover what problems actors across the industry faced in their careers as working actors. How did their current workflow and communication with their agent impact their efficiency?
Key Findings
Here is what I found…
7 out of 7 of users:
communicate with their talent reps through email
have auditions ranging from 1-6 times a week
6 out of 7 of users:
interact with several agents at a time
said they are usually busy with jobs, activities, or commuting while receiving casting emails
Most users described being unable to answer any communications with their agent immediately as they were preoccupied with their day job.
As a result, these emails or communications are answered later in the day or missed altogether. Along with struggles in email communication, many users had trouble with tracking conflicts across schedules.
Users said…
“I’ve absolutely missed an email from the agent. I miss voiceovers auditions all the time, because it comes from a different section of the agency. One time, I missed the email and it was already one hour before the audition was due!”
— Actor & Therapist
“I accidentally said I wasn’t booked for the same dates. Then the modeling project asked to book the same day as law order and couldn’t do a photoshoot which was the most money I would’ve ever earned.”
— Actor & Model
“One time I didn’t respond in a quick enough so my agent called immediately. I was busy working and it annoying because I am my own person.”
—Actor & Bartender
POV & HMW
After interviews, we used this POV and HMW to get in the head of our user.
I want to explore ways working actors in the industry can streamline their audition processes to help manage their workload because the multitude of communication platforms and the varying demands of auditions are overwhelming for an individual actor.
How might we help working actors in the industry streamline their audition processes to help manage their workload so that they can meet the varying demands of overwhelming auditions.?
With our user research findings, Anya’s persona was created to represent our user base.
Persona
Anya’s persona shows how pain points like a packed schedule and a short email turnaround time impact her administrative efficiency.
Ideation & Prioritization
Thinking about how the user would need a simple way to organize their work, I began to outline the product with this sitemap
Sitemap
Here, we outlined the full scope of this product. Features directly relating to streamlining email communication took the highest priority. Features that would enable actors to organize files and a premium profile for other industries taking latter priority.
Feature Roadmap
Minimum Viable Product
After mapping what needed to be done for this end-to-end application, we focused on what features were essential for the minimum viable product by narrowing in on our persona’s primary pain points.
Using this flow, the product hones in how the user will be able to view an email, cross-reference the email’s dates and reply to their agent.
This flow is takes into takes them straight from email notifications to their calendar, providing pathways to either add their audition to their schedule or reply immediately.
Userflows
Wireframing
Low Fidelity: Iteration 1
This first design of the email page assumed that the product could pull information directly from the email.
This would mean that the product would scan, assess and extract important information from the email.
This was inspired by the long density of audition emails, with the goal to make important information immediately available to the user. From this design, the user would able to see the details quickly, then view the specific date listed in the calendar.
Low Fidelity: Iteration 2
I realized the product would not be able to extract information:
To remedy this, I drafted two features:
The user would be able to filter emails according to the content of the email.
The product would scan important phrases or dates in the body of the email such as “please confirm” or “audition due friday 2/21”.
How would the product actually assess and extract this information from the body of the email?
A Question Of Technical Feasibility
In presenting this design to my fellow designers, an essential question arose:
I was still unsure if development would be possible, so I interviewed 3 software engineers to ascertain the feasibility of these two key features.
The engineers unanimously agreed on three points.
The product could be able to scan email’s subject line for keywords, but its questionable to rely on importing only these emails.
If the product failed to import a priority email, it would decimate user trust.
It is feasible to create a product that would layer over a current emailing platforms API. This pattern had been done many times in the past.
The product would be able to import emails from several email platforms and layer over its existing code
While the ability to scan dates would be possible, it would require an AI learning model or library to teach the product to correctly assess dates.
Together, we brainstormed that limiting the detection to numbers and specific patterns of dates might make this feat more scalable to develop.
These interviews showed me that my designs were idealistic. The product would not be able to interpret words and complex information.
We decided to move forward with the assumption that if this product would be developed, one of the main goals would be to create an accurate learning model focused on only numerical date detection.
Brand & UI Design
Heading into the brand design, the goal was to make the product
professional
calming
trustworthy
I relied on a primarily grey, white and black color scheme. These colors allow for the content and functions of the product to stand out, by not overpowering them with color.
For the accent color, I chose a dark red with hints of fuchsia. Red is a color often associated with actors, the red carpet and the red curtains of theaters coming to mind.
The name BASCA stands for Booking, Actors, Schedule, Casting, Auditions.
The logo draws inspiration for the clapperboard use by production during filming between takes.
High Fidelity Prototypes
After gathering research from the engineers and crafting brand design we came up with…
Email Settings
I changed the feature from importing priority emails to importing all emails but still allowing the product to categorize tagged emails as priority. This way the user would be able to view all incoming mails, but would allow users to still organize by priority.
Here, the user is still able to tag their talent representative’s email as important so that any emails coming from these aliases would be easily viewable.
Date Detection
The user is also able to add work schedules, acting bookings and any other events.
This feature also allows the user to set priority levels and push notifications to make sure users never miss a scheduled conflict.
Calendar Functions
From these findings, I deduced that as the primary feature of this product is to link emails to calendar:
The product would focus only on numerical dates to link into clickable dates.
The button next to the links would take the user to the “view in calendar function”
For this view in calendar page, the user is able to view and compare the priority of their different jobs and events. This would give the user an easy way to decide how they would like to reply to their agent.
Testing & Iterations
I tested 3 users over zoom for usability testing
Here’s what I found.
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Revision 1/3
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Revision 2/3
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Revision 3/3
Reflection
This project showed me the limitation of development and taught me the importance of collaboration between engineers and designers. I essentially had to completely change the direction of my design based on the technical constraints of development.
I chose this topic as this was a problem I had experienced in my own life. I strived to make a product that would improve the live’s of actors. An actor’s work lies not only in television bookings, but also the administrative management of their careers. Through my research, I discovered that my problem was one that effected my fellow actors as well.
As there were many pain points and problems that arose from the research, there were also many possible solutions that I could have taken to try and solve it. I had to limit my scope and focus on the problem that I thought I could best solve for. This taught me to be open to iteration and to keep my mind open while ideating. Its best to as throw as many things as a wall and hope just one of them sticks. Then after it sticks, test it and iterate once more.
