Design case study — FlexiMeetup
About the project
18 months ago I enrolled in an online specialization offered by Coursera.org with the goal of sharpening my design skills and obtaining a verifiable degree that would make it easier for me to get a full time design job.
After completing the seven classes, I had to work on a 10 week long capstone project that makes use of all the knowledge aquired during the process and puts a cap on an 18 months effort.
I started with a broad theme called Time and did some research to find out how people think about and plan their time. Long story short, the most interesting problem was the friction around scheduling a meeting, online or via phone, and I set a goal to solve this through clever design.
Storyboards
The next step in the process was to summarize the research findings and translate the problem and the solution in a more visual way, focusing only on the user need and the context around that need.
The storyboards above describe the interaction between an event host and one of it’s guests.
Paper mockups and early user testing
One of the things emphasized during the class was the importance of a low fidelity prototype and it’s high value when it comes to obtaining quick feedback.
After sketching a few screens from the most important user flow of the solution, I started testing it with a couple of friends. The findings were interesting and I obtained a list of enhancements to work on.
Besides testing with users, the class also teaches about the benefit of obtaining feedback from fellow designers, by using a process pioneered by Jacob Nielsen, called heuristic evaluation.
For that, Coursera scheduled a virtual meetup with two of my peers and we got the chance to offer and receive feedback on our work, using Nielsen’s heuristics as a metric for good design.
The interactive prototype
After receiving enough feedback, it was time to move on to digital mockups that allow a bit more detail and are closer to the final solution, both in how they look and feel.
I used Balsamiq to draw the screens and Invision to tie the screens together in a navigation structure.
Having an interactive prototype allowed me to do more user testing, in an easier way. The issues discovered at this point were related to colors, button and label placement and less to navigation or the conceptual model of the application.
Online usability tests
One of the most interesting parts of the project was to do A/B testing on usertesting.com.
I had to design a study that would help me assess the impact of a change in one of the screens and do the study with random people from all over the world. This was something new for me, because for the first time I saw my design at work, without having the option to intervene and help the users in difficulty.
The test results were awesome, there were no major usability issues and I got some sugestions on how to improve the look and feel of the application.
High fidelity mockups
With most of the usability issues identified and solved, it was time to focus on details.
I defined the name of the application, a logo and the overall visual style.
Since I was already familiar with Google’s guidelines, I chose to use Material Design for the visuals.
Conclusion
The entire project was an interesting challenge and more than anything forced me to do a lot of user testing before getting to any conclusion.
Usertesting.com surprised me a lot and I think I will use their services in my future work.
