Brush is an art and design tutorial platform aimed at the independent, self-motivated creative looking to expand their knowledge and skillsets. The web experience and mobile app give users a place to watch videos and tutorials, follow a community of mentors and professionals, and share and upload their own work for others to learn from.
The power of mentorship and teaching is a powerful tool and we have seen it put to great use in other learning apps available to aspiring creatives. Brush combines that power with the social and community aspect of other video sharing and social media apps to create the ultimate learning experience for users to pursue new skills, network, and grow alongside their peers.
To understand how users would navigate Brush, I first identified a working information architectural layout to better inform the user flow to come. I started by outlining the main functions, then expanded each section to figure out what supplemental features would create a fully functional experience and nothing undefined. This also communicated how to proceed with the layout of each page and reach the end of the user journey.
Brush is meant to have a semi-professional feel that sits in the balance between work and play. The user should feel comfortable and inspired but never pressured; the goal is to build on the motivation that brought them to the app in the first place. Through bright and vibrant colors, bold and blunt typefaces, and soft icons, the aim was to create an engaging user experience.
Explore, the homepage, is where every visit begins. This is the starting point and the first place a self-motivated learner meets a feed of videos, tutorials, and mentors built around them. I wireframed it first to settle the structure: a left panel for filters, playlists, and followed mentors, and a main feed catered to each profile. Once the skeleton was there I moved to high fidelity, layering in Brush's color, type, and video library catered to the user.
Brush is organized around connected pages, each handing off naturally to the next and turning passive watching into active creating and sharing. Explore opens the loop; Learn, Create, and Watch carry it through.
The Learn page is a more focused landing page for users who know what they're looking for. Rather than browsing suggested results and exploring new topics, the user can access their most recently viewed mentor pages and most relevant course materials and tutorials. The same left panel carries over to filter results and feature playlists and mentor pages.
On the Create page, users can upload their own private videos and playlists for required course materials. Mentors can upload videos and tutorials or assemble courses for other users to interact with. The same options are available for filtering your own uploads and accessing playlists and other mentors' content.
The Watch page is the main destination of the user flow and where users spend most of their time consuming videos, tutorials, course materials, livestreams, and more. Recommended content sits in the right panel. Users can like videos to save for later, comment, interact, and leave feedback for other viewers and mentors to keep the conversation flowing.
Brush was designed to travel. Each of the surfaces was carried into a mobile layout so learners can explore, create, and watch from anywhere; the same continuous loop condensed into a single thumb-friendly column.
A navigable prototype of the Brush desktop app from the homepage to Learn and Create, and finally to the Watch page. Try it out!
Motivating yourself can be a difficult task and even more so under the pressure of following through. Take learning a new language, practicing a new skill, or even starting a new project. Brush was designed to create a user-friendly experience that helps self-motivated individuals stay on track.
While working on this project I faced challenges of my own, and in doing so was reminded of the same difficulties many Brush users will face. That was a primary inspiration for many of the concepts and features of Brush.
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