STARTING POINT - CREATE A POST
On a platform like 1TM, which is designed to help creators share their creations, creating posts is arguably one of the most basic and important features. After all, no matter what kind of creator you are or what kind of creation you have, you need to show it to everyone. From the very beginning, 1TM platform set its target users to include creators from as many fields as possible, such as writers, illustrators, composers, post-production special effects workers, and even creators of computer chassis. Therefore, the basic function of creating posts must be able to meet the needs of creators in various fields.
Role - UX, UI
Year - 2022
Project - 1TM
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The original editor version, only integrated editor.js
With the implementation of iframely, a new problem has arisen in interface design: How to let users know that we support such a wide range of media formats? Moreover, since iframely supports quite a variety of formats, how to integrate it into the existing user interface?
Looking back at the original intent of the platform, we tried to summarize what the world's creators are, and then sort them into categories, since our target audience is "creators of all kinds". In the end, we identified 39 main categories, and grouped them into eight buttons on the left side of the editing tool. In this way, users immediately know which media categories are supported by the platform and embed their desired media formats as soon as they open the editor.
It is also worth mentioning that the pop-up window that appears after users click on any of these buttons is enhanced with examples of popular software used by different creators.
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New editor for eight media categories added
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Settings field dedicated to minting NFTs
Creation is an iterative and evolving process, so there is a need to maintain editorial flexibility. Especially before publication, authors need to refine their work to perfection, but the need to provide post-publication editing capabilities has become an endless debate within the team. In the case of book publishing, after multiple proofs and corrections, the book is a done deal and there is no room for backtracking until the next edition is printed.
One of the characteristics of digital creation is its iterative nature. Articles published on the web can be updated, and music videos can be tweaked and optimised. But what if the creation is a collaborative effort by several people? Does each update require the consent of the participants? Who has the right to modify the work submitted to other projects? Can the author of an article sponsored by a member change the point of view of the article? There are no standard answers to these questions, and we have to go back to the core values of the 1TM platform to weigh and make decisions.
3. Trade-offs between saving drafts or not
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Page design for unpublished drafts and submissions
In addition to the web2 creators, we also need to provide services to the web3 creators. At the same time, due to the different scale of content creation, if it is more complex or more diverse content, there will definitely be a need to complete a post in stages, or the creator wants to refine the content before publishing the situation, when designing the editor for creating posts, we also have to take it into account. After integrating these requirements, we summarize them as follows.
Challenges
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Create an editing tool that is friendly to creators of all disciplines.
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In addition to web2 creators, web3 creators need to be taken into account as well.
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The flexibility to save posts for future editing before they are published.
At the beginning of planning this function, we chose Editor.js as the core of the editor. The purpose is to make a quick MVP to verify the integration with other functions on the platform. Editor.js is a text-based editor that supports images and code inserted.
At the time, we thought this would be enough for most creators until we took a prototype and did a few user interviews and testing with creators from different fields. From the feedback of the testees, I found that using Editor.js alone cannot fully meet the needs of creators in different fields. For example, there was an industrial designers who cannot perfectly render a 3D model in a post with the existing editing functions. However, with the team composition at that time, we can't develop various tools to meet the needs of different creators...
Just when we were at a loss, we luckily found iframely, a service specializing in various multimedia embeddings, which perfectly solved our pain point of supporting multiple media formats!
1. An editing tool for a wide range of creative fields
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After integrating with iframely, the editor can support multiple media embedding
During the interviews with creators, we found that the market size of NFT creators should not be underestimated, so we began to seriously consider whether to allow these creators to publish NFT works on the 1TM platform as well.
However, the process of releasing NFTs is very complicated. For example, after uploading NFTs, we need to set up the relevant attributes and sales model, and we also need to interface with the existing NFT market, so that NFTs on 1TM can circulate in the market. In addition, adding NFT-related features to the existing platform will definitely affect the original development schedule significantly.
After several rounds of discussion and evaluation with team members, we finally decided to design a new editing tool and process for these creators: complete the setting of creating NFT >> publish >> set the sales amount and mint it as NFT >> go on sale. In the images below, you can see how the page looks like after several iterations and the final version.
2. An editing tool that supports Web3 creators
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Add embedded multimedia demos to pop-up windows
Although NFT creators still prefer to publish on the NFT platform as the market currently stands, the potential of the web3 market can be seen in the fact that many well-known creators' platforms are trying to add support for publishing NFT works to their existing platform frameworks. Having actually been involved in the development of the 1TM platform, it is very challenging to integrate the two seamlessly into the same platform. From the enthusiasts' point of view, users interested in non-NFT creations are mostly interested in the work itself, while those interested in NFT projects are more interested in the investment side. From the creators' point of view, most of the well-known NFT works are currently team works (which coincides with the original purpose of the 1TM platform - collaboration) and are intended to be sold, while non-NFT works are mostly created by individuals and are intended to be created and shared. How to bring people from these two different worlds together and encourage collaboration to happen is one of the biggest issues on the 1TM platform.
The possibility of non-NFT creation and NFT creation coexisting on the same platform
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Iterated versions of the NFT page
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Final version of the NFT page