NFCW
Prototyping a Revenue-Sharing Collaboration Platform for the Future of Creative Work
NFCW, established in 2008, is a leading provider of B2B news, analysis, and educational resources for global professionals and senior executives working in the contactless technology space. With an expansive audience that includes everyone from banks and transport providers to IoT manufacturers and regulatory bodies, NFCW’s platform is a cornerstone in an ever-evolving ecosystem. Its audience spans across continents—roughly a third based in the Americas, a third in Europe, and a third in Asia-Pacific and beyond—with over 69% of readers in management roles and 25% occupying C-suite positions.
Building on the success of their freemium business model, event programming (such as Contactless World Congress), and digital infrastructure like the NFCW Knowledge Centre and NFCW Expo, NFCW approached CEMET to help shape the future of their next digital product: Fifty Futures.
Fifty Futures is a proposed collaborative platform designed to connect brand owners with creative professionals—referred to as "brand ambassadors"—to collaboratively build, manage and monetise new content and services. CEMET was engaged to conduct detailed feasibility research and produce an end-to-end design prototype for the new platform.
What Did We Do?
The CEMET team worked closely with NFCW to design a comprehensive user experience and visual identity for their new network participant marketplace. We created a series of modular user interfaces tailored to three core areas of functionality within the Fifty Futures platform: MemberDesk, NewsDesk, and MakerDesk. Each of these “Desks” supports a unique interaction pipeline and is purpose-built for user types within the platform—from content creators and project owners to editorial teams and brand managers.
Using collaborative UX workshops and feedback from NFCW stakeholders, CEMET developed a comprehensive suite of deliverables tailored to the platform’s functional and strategic goals. This included a series of detailed web app wireframes and high-fidelity design prototypes aimed at enabling business owners and professionals to manage their collaboration pipelines effectively. A central dashboard interface was created to help users view notifications, manage assignments, track revenue, send invitations, and maintain a clear overview of their ongoing engagements. The user account section was designed to support task tracking, membership management, job role registration, and payment history, ensuring users could manage their professional presence on the platform with ease.
To support editorial workflows, CEMET produced a dedicated NewsDesk prototype, allowing Topic Editors, Sub-Editors, and Journalists to collaboratively manage and publish content. In parallel, the MemberDesk tool was developed to facilitate role-based assignment structures, enabling chapter owners and brand ambassadors to manage upsell and cross-sell activities and assign roles for targeted member engagement. The MakerDesk interface was also introduced as a space for product development collaboration, featuring briefing modules, task timelines, and real-time communication tools for working teams.
To complete the user journey, additional flows were implemented for sign-up, login, onboarding, and general platform navigation, accommodating both new and returning users. Alongside the interface development, CEMET conducted a full feasibility assessment to evaluate UX design considerations, market conditions, platform strategy alignment, and user behaviour trends. This was supported by a knowledge transfer document containing style variations, developer-ready dark mode designs, and a complete design component asset pack for use in future development phases.
To facilitate engagement testing, CEMET delivered fully clickable prototypes of each of the three desks and the wider platform
Feasibility Research and Strategic Insight
As part of the project, CEMET conducted an extensive feasibility study to explore the commercial potential of NFCW's proposed revenue-sharing platform model.
The research focused on NFCW’s transition from a freemium information hub to an interactive collaboration space supporting creative projects between brand owners and creators. The core platform design was aligned with a Product Development strategy (from the Ansoff Matrix framework), using NFCW’s existing market and user base to introduce a new suite of platform tools.
The benefits of the platform’s revenue-sharing model were clear:
It lowered barriers to entry for small and mid-sized businesses by reducing upfront costs.
It fostered stronger partnerships, encouraging long-term participation by aligning partner success with platform success.
It built a performance-driven environment that attracted high-quality creative professionals.
The study also highlighted best practices for phased implementation, feedback loops, and premium feature strategies—such as lead generation tools and advanced analytics—to support future revenue streams. NFCW’s use of modular monetisation modules (Sales, Marketing, Product) was seen as a scalable innovation enabling a wide variety of projects to operate under a shared system architecture.
Platform Functionality Highlights
NewsDesk A robust collaboration interface for managing content creation pipelines, including role-based assignments, approval workflows, and editorial oversight tools for managing everything from story briefs to final submissions.
MemberDesk A relationship management interface that enables user segmentation, contact strategies, and role assignments. It supports the upselling and engagement of members based on project or product alignment and allows for detailed tracking of user contributions and interactions.
MakerDesk A workspace for creating and managing collaborative product or service projects. It includes options to define tasks, roles, payment terms, and communication structures for real-time collaboration.
User Flow Design Users are guided through intuitive onboarding screens that lead to appropriate “Desks” based on their project needs or user role. NFCW’s existing member data is pre-loaded where applicable, streamlining the setup process.
Admin Dashboard Users can oversee their accounts, manage active and past assignments, track payments, and edit business profiles. The system is designed with role-flexibility in mind to allow team-based account control.
Visual Design We developed multiple visual themes—including dark mode options—to allow for user preference testing and future feature toggling based on feedback. Designs were intentionally kept modular to support rapid future iterations.
Outcomes
This collaborative design project delivered a scalable prototype, grounded in extensive industry research and directly aligned with NFCW’s business strategy. The platform offers a new channel for generating revenue, empowering creatives, and strengthening community ties across NFCW’s ecosystem. With the infrastructure and designs now in place, NFCW is poised to move into user testing, iteration, and eventual development.
The platform’s modular structure—MemberDesk, NewsDesk, MakerDesk—ensures it can evolve with NFCW’s strategic ambitions, whether expanding into new markets, adding new creative verticals, or experimenting with alternate monetisation models.
This marks a bold evolution for NFCW, transitioning from an industry news leader into an enabler of digital collaboration and creative entrepreneurship.
CEMET is proud to continue to support NFCW through the development of this project. To find out more about their latest work visit their website.