Sportz

General Assembly UDXI Project 1

Holly Hamlett
Jul 21, 2017 · 5 min read

Project 1 for the UXDI course at General Assembly was to create a simple, interactive protoype of a mobile application for a fellow student based on their interests and a problem they are having.

Using the skills learned in the first week, which included User Interviews, Concept Mapping, User Flows, Wireflows and Paper Protoyping, I was able to create my functioning protoype in Marvel.


The User.

First Steps

My inital process was to interview Rich and learn a little more about him.

I began to understand Rich’s background by asking general questions, such as how his journey into the class was that day and what he likes to do in his spare time.

One of Rich’s interests was in sports, namely football. Our conversation flowed to why he no longer plays. He mentioned that a lot of his friends have moved out of London, which means it is too far from them to come for a casual game. When I investigated further he also said he didn’t want to join a team as he didn't enjoy a formal setting and couldn’t commit to a meeting once a week. Above all, he wanted to get fitter without it feeling like an exercise regime.

“I want something that is about fun, rather than just for fitness.”

Concept Mapping

Concept Map v2

Through the process of concept mapping I was able to filter the interview to the key themes and narrow the focus of the problem.

Initial Sketches

My initial sketches developed a structure and visual style for the application.

I found this useful as a quick exercise to jot down the ideas at the forefront of my mind, and it gave me a point from which to evolve a balance between features and usability.

The second iteration of the sketches, when shown to Rich, highlighted features that he found were unnecessary, such as searching for other users by shared interests and a messaging service. Following feedback, many of the screens were also simplified to promote usability.

First Sketches

Storyboard

Developing a storyboard helped me visualise the context in wich the app would be used and put myself in Rich’s shoes.

User Flow

The User Flow allowed me to create a step by step mapping to visualize the screens needed for the user journey for Rich. Reviewing each user flow helped me determine which screens were necessary for the user journey and I quickly abandoned screens I had thought were useful in order to streamline the experience of finding the goal, which in this case was to find a meet-up for that day after work.

User flow in progress!

Wire Flow

Having created a wireflow from the user flow, I went through the user journey with Rich. His insight was helpful as I was able to check that the user journey made sense to him as well as how useful some of the features I had thought of would be. These included pre-setting the date (since Rich would usually be using the app to look for meet-ups on the same day) and offering a range of time for the search so the activity could be planned for later in the day. He also suggested that the ability to share the meet-up with friends would be useful, which was added to the later iteration of my wireflow.

Paper Prototyping

The paper prototype process was my first chance to watch Rich go through the user journey without prompting, and check that it was both logical and simple. It was especially interesting to observe the screens where he paused as it made me re-think the usability of that screen. Rich also highlighted one or two things that I had not thought of, and I was able to make changes based on the feedback.

I next tested with Frankie and Louisa, both of who gave me useful feedback, such as adding a welcome screen and extra navigational elements.

Clickable Prototype

Following on from this feedback further changes were made, which resulted in the clickable prototype seen below. Feedback from Rich was that it is easy to use and is likely something he would use to meet-up with fellow kick-abouters.

https://marvelapp.com/1i3j0f4

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Holly Hamlett

Written by

Junior UX Designer, based in London

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