Sprint 1: Interaction Design Deliverable 1

This week’s sprint was to challenge us in designing an app to aid researchers in collecting data on Plant Health in King County. I created an app for Hikers to plant seeds on their daily hikes and to be able to document the life of their plant. My app is called The Planters.

The users were given the option to take a picture, add a geo tag, explain the life of their plant, rate the life of their plant, share their plant over social media, and track their Points. The idea of tracking points was an additional future created to help motivate the users to keep using the app. Each post they do gives them 1 point, and when they gain a total of 50 points we plant a tree for them.

This was my first time ever coming close in creating an app and I became extremely proud. I made sure to show many of my friends, and one of them even ended up helping me in creating my video. Click here to watch the video.

In the process of making this app I continuously thought about user design. One of my main focuses was making sure the display was clear and easy to navigate through. One way I did this was by adding a home button in the left corner on each page to help the users easily navigate back to the home menu. In my opinion this was helpful because the users can always navigate back to the home page and see all their options.

I wanted to be as detailed as possible, but in the process of making my prototype I realized that the prototype is only a good place to start, and isn't the final product. A prototype is a great place to create your design and lay out your ideas for a user to use in a simple form.

I enjoyed making my app through POP. As I began to use POP I began having technical difficulties. For example, when I was linking buttons or pages on POP they were not directing my users in the right direction. One thing I gained from this experience was to make sure I have all my ideas well thought out before starting. This is because when I started making the app on POP I realized I was forgetting a few things in my drawings and it caused me to recreate or add new drawings. Even though it was difficult to use at times I still had a great experience. It was cool to create an app and be able to test it without having to use to much technical skills.

One thing I liked about this project was that it allowed me to be creative and think outside the box. Even though there were certain guidelines I had to follow, I was still able to use my imaginations to fulfill those requirements. In my past when I’ve used other apps there were things I didn’t like such as, their display menus or the way they had users navigate throughout the app. When I made this app it was cool because I was able to design it however I wanted and I could add my own ideas of what I think an efficient way of navigation through an app looks like. Watching my ideas come to life was incredible!