From Open Brief to MVP Scope: Shaping a Digital Ecosystem from Real User Voices
Challenge
The Holistic Foundation set out to build a digital ecosystem for sustainable and social change, with a mobile app as the first surface. The product was at definition stage. Who the users actually were, what they needed, and how a single app could hold together a wide set of offerings — all of that was still open. The foundation didn't want a tech-led answer. They wanted the direction of the entire ecosystem to be grounded in real user voices, from personas through to MVP scope.
My Role
I led the user research and the conceptual work over a four-month engagement, working as part of a small project team. I planned and ran the qualitative research, facilitated the remote workshops with the external community, owned the synthesis into a strategic direction for the ecosystem, and shaped multiple rounds of app prototypes that we validated back with users.
Activities
- Mapped a research approach across recruiting channels and user groups, deliberately reaching a broad spectrum of society
- Three back-to-back research sprints: Personas, Conceptual Prototype, MVP Scope
- 1:1 interviews with externally recruited participants, alongside larger remote workshops and online surveys
- Stood up an online community as a continuous research channel, with transparent updates and recurring feedback on prototypes
- Synthesis of 66 participant voices into three archetypes (Interested, Engaged, Initiators), backed by archetype posters used as a reference for design decisions
- Mapped observations, trends, and potential risks for the ecosystem
- Concepted the app structure and prototyped how the different offerings and services could fit together, validated with the community
Outcome
What started as an open brief landed as a concrete product direction with a defined MVP scope, grounded in 66 real voices instead of internal assumptions. The three archetype posters became the reference for design decisions in the phases that followed. The online community we built during research kept running as a permanent feedback loop — so the next round of work didn't have to start cold each time.