Coursera Interaction Design Capstone Project: Mentesanna

4 min readNov 15, 2016

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” attributed to Confucius

That’s how I could resume my journey through the end of this Specialization. Almost a year ago, when I started the specialization, I did know nothing about Interactive Design, User Experience, HCI, etc. Today, thanks to the learning through doing experience UCSD and Coursera put together, I’m feeling so positive to share what I learned with the rest of the world.

In this post, I want to present you my Interaction Design Specialization Capstone Project: the making of my app, Mentesanna.

My project was based on the brief ‘Time’

The way people represent time changes how they think about it. Wall calendars remind us of years, seasons, and the dentist appointment 6 months in the future. They codify weeks by wrapping every seven days, and it’s easy to find the weekends — they are on the edges. Clocks help us coordinate with others. Historically, many countries’ citizens adopted pocket watches and clocks along with the railroad. Before the railroad, there was no need for precise time. Daily schedules help us plan. They can encourage us to “fill” our days, or talk about being “free”. When we punch the clock or bill hours, we turn time into money. These representations are human inventions. Most digital time representations — — clocks, daily and monthly calendars, … — — simply translate paper and gears into pixels and beeps. With the computation and sensing capabilities of mobile devices, can we find a more personal and joyful way to interact with time?

Your Mission
Redesign the way we experience or interact with time.

Needfunding

My approach was to learn how the people schedule work activities and also leisure activities to de-stress. I asked 3 participants to walk me through their schedule planning routines to balance work/life while dealing with daily stress. One participant uses a combination of smartphone/smartwatch to track his activities and also to monitor his heart rate during the day.

Point of View

Today’s lifestyle is leading the workforce population to high to highest levels of stress ever registered. One of the causes of this is less time dedicated to personal life (hobbies, family, friends, etc.) and more time to work. One of the consequences of this disorder is a poor stress management who leads to some other diseases as Obesity, Diabetes, Depression, etc. Finding new activities to do during the day based on health goals, likes and benefits can help to have better Stress management.

Storyboard 1 (left); Storyboard 2 (right)

Testing, testing, testing and more testing

This process is key, after each test I found new points of friction, things to be fixed and improve.

Some of the questions that came to my mind during the tests I ran:
How is the user interacting with the menu?
If so, how long do they spend on it?
How often do they go back to the home page?
What do they care about? What information helps them navigate?
What do they not care about- what are some extraneous steps or information?

The first version of the interactive prototype being tested

Ready for A/B testing

These are the theories I wanted to prove running the A/B test through Ussertesting.com

Experiment 1: Menu Buttons or Slider Menu

Our in-person testing data showed that a menu at the bottom of the screen makes the user lose the focus on the task they are performing, making them jump from one page to another without completing any task. I will measure the number of times the menu buttons are used. If the count is high (A), that means the buttons are not a distraction while the user is willing to finish a task. If the count is low (B), that means the users prefer a hidden menu, available only when is needed.

Prototype A

Experiment 2: Back/Next Buttons or Swipe

While conducting in-person test the participants tended to swipe when they see pagination dots, instead of using the back/next buttons. I will measure the number of times the buttons are clicked. If the count is high (A), that means the buttons are clear enough to draw users to click and find out more information on the next page. If the count is low (B), then that means the users prefer to swipe while navigating within the app.

Prototype B