OPTIMIZING TOOL: A COURSERA CAPSTONE PROJECT
I work as a UI/UX designer. I am currently focused on user interface design (UI) and data visualisation. So far, I have always worked for tech companies or tech departments, where design team tends to be small. That is why managing and planning properly is very important (in fact, this is always important).
Scenario
Imagine that your professional profile requires 8 or more applications/tools to work on a daily basis. Everyday, opening these tools takes you 10–15 minutes. Once opened you are really aware of your real workload and how you should plan and prioritise your tasks.
15 minutes everyday, is time consuming, isn’t it?
This is a solution
Optimizing Tool is a personal task organiser. A fully customised dashboard ready to plan your daily work visually, at a glance. It allows you to synchronise other devices (such as smartphones, tablets, laptops…), so this tool will suit your needs and circumstances. Refresh the dashboard anytime you need update your tasks or workflow along the day.
How does it work? When creating your user account, you must set up: the applications to be displayed (taking them from those installed on your equipment), task/issue priority (critical, high, low, no-priority), how the application should be launched (automatically or manually), sync and notifications. Once created your dashboard, you are ready to work!
Where the idea comes from
At the beginning I was considering different concepts to be developed, but the idea came up with my current position. As I said before I work as a designer for a media agency, which has many different profiles. Most of them have in common to use many tools at the same time to carry their tasks out, namely the tech ones. This people waste so much time opening these tools in order to have the big picture of the day. Therefore, creating a dashboard for them let me put together not only user interface design but also data visualisation (another subject which ir really interesting for me).
The information about working habits was gathered observing specifically how my partners started the day at the office, and in addition, publishing an online survey in my social network profiles. This information supported my feeling about an idea which would be helpful. In this early stage, it was very interesting to observe how people took advantage of the time they spent waiting to open the tools, doing things like checking personal email, agenda, notes for a meeting…They were trying to optimise that time.
In general terms, the most technical profile the most tools used and time spent. So Optimizing Tool is clearly focused on tech people.
Storyboards and prototypes
I started to carry out storyboards for feasible scenarios and afterwards, paper prototypes. To me, it was pretty clear to develop a desktop tool, but also I kept in mind a development for a mobile app (thinking about profiles who stay tuned 24h: Operations, Systems, HelpDesk…).
The Heuristic Evaluations (HE) were tested on paper prototypes. HE make you to put yourself in user’s place when using your tool. All breakdowns found were fixed and this fact improved usability, functionality and major navigation.
Wireframes
The next step was to create the wireframes for both versions, desktop and mobile. Wireframes show graphical elements in greyscale (like layout, icons, typography…) in order to verify how the arrangement will work on the screen.
Development plan and interactive prototype
The process moved on. The next step was creating an interactive prototype from the wireframe, using a tool I am familiar with due to my tasks. At the same time, I defined a development plan to describe milestones and features.
This is the result of the first version:
Since the process is iterative, HE were tested again on this prototype. The breakdowns were fixed and I started to polish graphics elements. As a result, this was the second version:
In-Person Tests
This second version was used to draw in-person tests. The testers were prospective users (some of them, my co-workers), and were given both desktop and mobile version. They were free to surf the prototype. It is important to let them know you only test the tool, not the people.
I really enjoyed observing in silence the way they approached to something new, where they stopped to read, where they got stuck, what was done quickly or slowly, how they thought aloud looking for an answer or solving a doubt…
After the test we chatted friendly, and I have been told the idea was pretty good and I noticed that desktop version was more interesting for them than mobile version. With the information gathered, I made some changes and redesigned some confusing functionality and navigation. And the third version came up:
Online Tests
The second and the third versions were used to draw online A/B tests. That was really new for me: unknown people, with different backgrounds and profiles, reaching my tool.
They found problems, basically technical problems (areas which were difficult to click, annoying effects when clicking some elements…I thought then that I should have checked out more carefully the tool used before creating the prototype…), and someone got even stuck. However, in general they all accomplished the task required. Also, the overall feedback was positive (one of the tester -a programmer- said that “it could be helpful in developing offices and it would be used by himself”. That made me feel good!).
This is link to watch a demo
To sum up, I like digital design and everything related to design. When I learnt how UX researchers and designers worked, I immediately knew I wanted to dive in deeper. So I had no doubt to enroll this Interaction Design Specialization on Coursera. And after a year learning and working, there is nothing to regret, it has been a wonderful experience.
