The precarious nature of creative freelancing in the Philippines.
Young creative freelancers in the Philippines often find it challenging to maintain income stability and effectively manage client work. This is linked to freelancers’ lack of portfolio-building literacy, skills development, and rate negotiation skills (Soriano 2020). With this, freelancers often lower their rates which hinders them from establishing fair compensation which in turn perpetuates a cycle of undervaluation in the freelancing industry. In addition, the mismanagement of client work affects freelancers’ job stability due to lapses in communication and boundaries. Without immediate measures to improve this, creative freelancers are at risk of clients undervaluing their work and potentially subjecting them to exploitation.
Empowering Filipino creative freelancers through Nexus.
To dive deeper into the problem, I conducted over 15 in-depth interviews and released comprehensive online survey questionnaires across social media and in-person. Through this, I found that the following were common pain points among stakeholders:
- managing multiple client projects,
- maintaining client relationships through clear communication channels,
- setting up administrative processes
- finding clients.
Thus, Nexus aims to empower emerging Filipino creative freelancers by providing them with a centralized platform that contains the essential tools needed to effectively manage client work.
Reducing client miscommunication through streamlining the feedback process
Freelancers often work on multiple projects simultaneously and could often lose track of their tasks. The workspace aims to address this by allowing both freelancers and clients to visualize the progress of each project. This fosters transparency and collaboration among the stakeholders as they can provide each other with meaningful feedback. To facilitate a centralized feedback process, Nexus allows users to comment directly on progress update photos so that all stakeholders involved are clearly aligned on which specific parts of the output require further edits.
Providing freelancers with learning resources to kickstart their careers.
It is challenging for creatives to find learning resources about freelancing that is within the Philippine context. Based on the insights from the research phase of this project, freelancers need further guidance on topics such as fair price valuation and negotiation, taxation and legalization of work. Hence, freelancers can access articles and learning materials regarding these topics within the resource hub. Additionally, there are editable templates for project briefs, pricing guides, memoranda of agreement, and invoices. This way, freelancers can effectively communicate their needs to their clients in a formalized manner.
An avenue for building lasting relationships and networking
As newcomers in the freelance industry, creatives might not always have access to a solid network of clients. Through services and opportunities, both freelancers and clients are enabled to connect with one another by browsing through the various creatives’ profiles or job opportunities. Freelancers can also showcase their top projects and define its particulars on their profile.
On usability and efficacy
Given that Nexus is currently a prototype, its features were evaluated for usability and efficacy. Particularly on achieving the following objectives:
- Helping freelancers visualize the progress of their projects and manage the amount of work that needs to be accomplished,
- Promoting transparency and collaboration among freelancers and clients,
- Guide freelancers as they navigate their freelance journey in the Philippines.
Testing was conducted using two methods: an online and onsite guided simulation, followed by a post-test feedback questionnaire. This evaluation involved 12 participants, including both freelancers and clients.
Insights and Feedback
Minor UI revisions were also implemented as participants mentioned that some buttons and functionalities lacked affordance, affecting how users navigate and interact with the prototype. Additionally, the rating system for freelancers was revised from quantitative to qualitative, allowing clients to better understand the freelancer’s work ethics. As such, affected features were iterated as shown below.
While Nexus was able to garner positive results, the project was partially successful in achieving its objectives. This may be attributed to its status as a prototype, which limits stakeholders from utilizing it in a more realistic setting. As such, the efficacy of the intervention is solely assessed on its potential. Nonetheless, the intervention was still able to meet its primarily goal of streamlining and empower emerging Filipino creative freelancers by providing them with the essential tools and techniques needed to effectively manage client work and relations.
Further developing the future of Nexus
Increased sample size and diversifying the pool of creative freelancers.
- In the research phase, it was difficult to gather a significant amount of clients that could provide their insights in working with freelancers. Thus, future iterations of Nexus needs thorough engagements with clients to better understand how the prototype could benefit them.
- Majority of freelance participants for this project involved graphic designers, illustrators, and UX designers. While their insights and feedback were valuable, Nexus would have a greater impact if there was a wider range of creative freelancers that participated.
Explore other testing methods that focuses on real-time interactions between freelancers and clients.
- Conducting longitudinal or thorough in-person testing sessions would provide more accurate results in terms of testing for the prototype’s usability and efficacy.
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