My experience evolving a design
I always had a crush on UX and design, so I started a specialization in Coursera about it: Interaction Design. The course is composed of 7 courses and a final project where we get all we learned and develop an idea.
We needed to choose between 3 themes and develop something for it. I chose the theme Change. I always tought that most of the people wants to help others, and most of them certainly would help if who is in need is close to them. But the information about who wants and who needs help is not centralized and generally is hard to find.
So, I wanted to create a platform, maybe something close to a social network, but focused in volunteering. This platform aims to facilitate the search for a volunteer opportunity and for volunteers.
I named it “Make a Difference”. “Make a Difference” has 2 major parts: Be a Volunteer; Be an Organizer. Anyone can be a volunteer as well as ask for help of others volunteers in the app.
The design had a lot of changes over the time.
I started with a paper prototype…
Passing through a wireframe prototype…
And finally the final prototype, using softwares designed for user tests. In my case, a combination of moqups.com and inVision.
During these phases, I tested the prototype several times. And after each test, I improved the design a little. The major changes were made in 2 of the main screens: Home and Volunteering Map.
In the tests of home, I realized that nobody undertood the purpose of the application. The major changes in the begining was with names of the actions, such as “Ask for help” and “Volunteer region”. The users, when encountering a operation with the name “Ask for help”, they automaticaly think about a support page of the app and not the real idea that is ask for help of other people in something that you are in need.
The “Volunteer region” problem was because nobody understood that you need to access this option to see the map with the events.
As I evolved the design after some more testing, I realized that even with descriptions on the page the user still got lost. So, one of them suggested create a tutorial for first time users, explaining the purpose of the app and the main functionalities. It was a good suggestion, so I did it.
The volunteering map manteined the same inspiration, but some details were added as the tests have been taking place. The major point was the indications on the map and what they represent. In the paper prototype, you didn’t have another place to look other than the points in tha map. But when I tried with a real map, users just couldn’t see the point in the map anymore. The circles of events mingled with the points on the map and the users passed by the screen without realize the purpouse of it. After discuss with the users to understand the problem, I came to the conclusion that I needed to highligh the indicator, as well as indicate on the screen what is the purpose of the map.
This was a great experience and made me think with another perpective while design something. Most of the problems I had, for me was obvious the porpose of the actions and meanings, but after talk with the testers I realize how wrong I was.
I know I will use what I learned for the rest of my days. And I recommend for everyone to try design something just one time, and you will see how it can change how you see the world. =)