We live in a day and age where personal well-being and ethos are being considered more and more in the workplace. However, there is a lack of platforms that highlight personal ideals in addition to generic employment-focused social-platforms such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Behance. Through my investigation, I found existing platforms such as LinkedIn to be restrictive and white-collared, while design-specific platforms such as Behance to be too open for visual input & personalization, which only fills designer’s niches.
By designing a networking platform for specific niches (minorities, movements) for people who look for an inclusive and different type of community in addition to simply seeking jobs, the aim is to let users establish their values, find their niche, and encourage connections via ideas and beliefs. Through the creation of i-teria, an app that lets users define their own “criteria,” the intention is to fill the missing gap between these two opposite types of platforms (LinkedIn and Behance), by simplifying interaction, categorizing info into tags of interests, backgrounds, hobbies, and providing space for creating a simplified body of work they want to showcase.