Suki Liu
Work
About
Resume
DoArk
I joined DoArk as the founding designer, building the product from zero. My role was to define the product positioning, conduct market and competitive research, design the core investor and enterprise facing experiences, and deliver the first prototype that supported the team's seed round pitch.
Key results
•
Reduced average clicks
by 43%
•
Improved task completion
rate from 68% to 91%
•
Decreased error rate by 52%
Role & Timeline
•
Founding Product Designer
•
December 2023 – February 2025
Methods
User Research / User Journey Mapping /
Competitive Analysis / Design Audit / Visual
design / Prototyping / Testing / Information Architecture / Cross-functional Collaboration
The Challenge
I was the founding designer at DoArk, a cross-border crowdfunding platform targeting Indonesian small and medium enterprises. The goal was to build a two-sided marketplace connecting local Indonesian businesses with investors, helping companies gain exposure and convert investor interest into funding.
The challenge was significant: the target users were small local businesses with little to no internet marketing experience, relying almost entirely on word of mouth and local networks. They had never listed a company online before. At the same time, investors needed enough transparency and data to make confident decisions. We had to serve both sides well from day one.
The core question was: 'How might we build a platform that helps unsophisticated enterprises present themselves credibly, while giving investors the transparency and tools they need to invest with confidence?'
Final Design
Defining the Problem
Market Research & Offline User Visits
Since the target users were small local businesses with limited digital presence, standard online research was not enough. The team conducted offline visits to more than 15 local Indonesian enterprises to understand how they thought about fundraising, what they knew about investors, and what barriers they faced to going online.
The visits revealed a consistent pattern. These businesses had strong local reputations and deep knowledge of their industries, but no ability to communicate their value to an outside investor. They had never written a company description, did not know what financial metrics an investor would care about, and had never presented their business to a stranger before.
This finding shaped the product direction: DoArk needed to do the storytelling and credibility-building work on behalf of enterprises, rather than expecting them to do it themselves.
photos or notes from offline business visits
Competitive Analysis
To define DoArk's market position, I analyzed [X] platforms across three categories: international crowdfunding platforms, regional and Indonesian platforms, and investor-focused data platforms.
International platforms analyzed: Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe, Crunchbase / Pitchbook
Regional and Indonesian platforms analyzed: Gandengtangan, Kitabisa, Kolase
Each platform was evaluated across five dimensions: fundraising difficulty, information transparency, return on investment support, community atmosphere, and regulatory compliance.
full competitive analysis matrix
Platform Positioning
The analysis identified three distinct clusters in the market and a clear gap that no existing platform was filling.
Kickstarter / GoFundMe / Kolase Low fundraising difficulty and strong community atmosphere, but weak investment support and limited information transparency. Designed for broad public participation rather than serious investment decision-making.
Potential obstacles we identified in the workshop
Crunchbase / Pitchbook High transparency and strong investment tools, but high barriers to entry. Too complex and institution-facing for Indonesian SMEs listing their business for the first time.
Potential obstacles we identified in the workshop
Kitabisa / Gandengtangan Strong community trust and regulatory compliance, but no investment return support. Focused on public benefit rather than commercial fundraising.
Potential obstacles we identified in the workshop
No existing platform combined accessibility, transparency, investment support, and regulatory compliance in one place for Indonesian SMEs. DoArk's differentiated position was: mid-tier accessibility + high transparency + investment support + regulatory compliance.
positioning map and radar chart showing DoArk's differentiation
Detail Page Benchmarking
A second round of competitive analysis focused on how platforms structure project information for investors. Three distinct patterns emerged.
side by side comparison of detail page structures across platforms
Story-driven — [PLACEHOLDER: platforms] Long form narrative, image heavy, and emotion first. Effective for public crowdfunding but insufficient for investment decision-making.
positioning map and radar chart showing DoArk's differentiation
Data-driven — [PLACEHOLDER: platforms] Dense metrics and financials presented upfront. Credible for institutional investors but overwhelming for first-time users.
positioning map and radar chart showing DoArk's differentiation
Hybrid — [PLACEHOLDER: platforms] A balance of narrative and data. More accessible than pure data platforms and more informative than pure story platforms.
positioning map and radar chart showing DoArk's differentiation
DoArk required the hybrid approach, calibrated specifically for investors making financial decisions rather than a general audience making emotional ones.
Registration Flow Benchmarking
To design the enterprise registration experience, I studied how competitors handle first-time project listings. Given that target users had never listed a business online before, the registration flow was identified as a critical drop-off point.
Key patterns identified across platforms:
Step by step forms with progress indicators
Design audit on the editor
Save and resume functionality
Left: Design audit on the entry point; Right: Design audit on the signature
Preview mode before publishing
Left: Design audit on the entry point; Right: Design audit on the signature
Industry specific templates
Design Principles
Three principles emerged from the research and competitive analysis to guide all subsequent design decisions.
Design Principles
Three principles emerged from the research and competitive analysis to guide all subsequent design decisions.
Transparency builds trust Platforms that performed well with investors consistently surfaced clear, structured information early. DoArk would lead with data and key metrics rather than narrative.
Accessibility drives supply The platform only functions if enterprises can complete registration. Every step of the enterprise flow needed to be simple enough for a user listing a business online for the first time.
Third principle
The MVP
With the research and positioning foundations in place, the design process began with two screens that would have the highest impact on both sides of the marketplace.
Left: Entry point exploration; Right: Signature field visual exploration
Project Detail Page
Investors were spending up to 45 seconds on the detail page before jumping to the FAQ or risk page to find supporting numbers, averaging 4.6 page jumps per project. That level of friction was directly impacting investment conversion.
The page was redesigned to surface business goals, key metrics, and risk indicators above the fold. Project narrative and social proof were positioned below to support the data rather than replace it. A profit calculator was added so investors could model expected returns in real time without leaving the page.
annotated screenshot of the project detail page showing the three priority zones
Project Registration Page
A standard long form registration would have caused immediate abandonment among users who had never listed a business online before.
A guided registration flow was designed to remove every unnecessary decision point. A step by step form with a progress bar made the process feel manageable. Industry example templates gave enterprises the language to describe their work to investors. Inline document upload reduced preparation burden by allowing businesses to attach materials at the relevant moment. An investor view preview allowed enterprises to see exactly how their listing would appear before submitting.
registration flow screens showing step by step progression
Design Review & Iterate
With the initial prototype in place, the team conducted an internal design review before moving forward. Rather than a formal structured critique, the review was an open async process where every team member, including the financial advisor, reviewed the prototype and left comments directly on the designs.
The financial advisor played a particularly important role in this process. Every financial term on the platform was reviewed to ensure it could be understood by users with no investment background. This covered the profit calculator, risk indicators, return on investment labels, and the language used throughout the project registration form. Several terms were flagged as potentially misleading to first-time users and revised accordingly.
Feedback from the design review
All comments were collected and grouped through an affinity mapping exercise. Feedback was organized into categories and reframed as how might we questions to identify the most actionable problems. Each item was tagged as either something to fix immediately or something to monitor in future iterations.
Two priorities emerged from the review:
Make the design more accessible Several interactions and labels assumed a level of financial literacy that target users did not have. These were simplified or replaced with plain language equivalents.
Ensure content is interpretable outside the investment industry The registration form contained terminology that project creators found confusing. Copy was revised to use everyday language, with tooltips added for any term that could not be simplified without losing meaning.
Feedback from the design review
This review process also served a broader team alignment purpose. As a small startup, keeping everyone informed of design progress meant that whoever was pitching the product to investors could speak confidently about every design decision and articulate the product's strongest advantages clearly.
Roadmap
As founding designer, I defined the phased product roadmap in collaboration with the team.
P1 — MVP: Focus on the core investor path covering discovery → detail → invest → payment
P2 — Enterprise completeness: Lower the barrier for enterprise onboarding and optimize the project publishing flow
P3 — Two-sided growth flywheel: Build the growth loop connecting investor activity with enterprise supply to drive the platform ecosystem
Roadmap visuals
Maze unmoderated test result
Snapshots of moderated usability test
Impact
The first version of DoArk was delivered within the project timeline and used directly to support the team's seed round pitch. The prototype communicated the product vision clearly enough for early investors to commit, and the team successfully raised seed funding. The design also established the platform's information architecture, visual language, and interaction patterns, providing the engineering team with a clear foundation to build from.
Challenges and Compromises
During the design process, the financial advisor flagged that several financial terms and data presentations were too complex for first-time users outside the investment industry. To ensure the platform could launch with a registration flow that enterprise users could actually complete, we simplified the language and structure significantly, deferring more advanced financial disclosure features to a later iteration. Although not the most comprehensive solution, it was the right call to reduce drop-off risk and get the product in front of real users as quickly as possible.
While the MVP launched with a simplified registration and detail page, the full vision for both screens continued to be developed in parallel. A more complete version of the detail page, including richer risk disclosure, investor history, and social proof features, was designed and documented for the P2 roadmap, ensuring the team had a clear direction to build toward after the seed round.
Although the product was delivered within the seed round timeline, there were several improvements identified for future iterations. Some of the suggested improvements include:
Simplify financial terminology further across the registration form based on real user feedback from enterprise onboarding.
Add contextual tooltips to the profit calculator to help investors understand how return projections are calculated.
Improve the hierarchy of information on the project detail page to better guide first-time investors through the decision-making process.
Research required
Assess investor needs for additional trust signals on the detail page, such as third-party verification and audit reports.
Assess enterprise needs for guided content templates across different industries beyond the initial set.
Explore the two-sided growth flywheel in P3, connecting investor activity with enterprise supply to create a self-reinforcing platform ecosystem.
