Interaction Design Sprint
In studio this week, the class focused on designing the user interaction for a citizen science app related to plant health. The project was broken down into basic elements such as the user, the function of the app, and the data collected by the app. The class began the process by brainstorming in small groups for each element. This gave each student a collection of potential features and scenarios to choose from, allowing everyone to put more energy into designing the user interaction for the app prototype. Our apps were created with the prototyping tool Marvel. Marvel allows designers to simulate an interactive app with nothing more than paper sketches of the screens.
My Solution
The app that I designed focused on collecting the location and other information of unhealthy trees from outdoor enthusiasts. Here is a video describing my app design and user interaction.
So What?
This sprint gave us a taste of the interaction design mindset. Designers must focus not only on what their product will do, but how their end users will use and interact with the product. What I liked about this process was being able to focus on the interaction design of the app. By brainstorming more than enough ideas to begin with, the focus of the design process transitioned away from the what, and to the how of the product. Creating interactive paper prototypes is a great way to quickly showcase an idea. Creating the video demonstrating the use of the prototype really caused me to fully flesh out my solution and ideas for the product.
Moving Forward
This design process is very focused. It is helpful to single your attention on a specific aspect of the solution, in this case, user interaction. Unlike the charrette that we did in week 1, this exercise is best done after the brainstorming process. Paper prototypes are a great first step to sharing your ideas with others. It gives your proposals life and provides something for your colleagues to hold and get a good feel for. Learning how to use Marvel to prototype the app added another tool to my tool belt. Keeping interaction design in mind is good practice when designing a product, and it was great to get a feel for the interaction design industry.
