iNspire — to achieve excellence…
TIME — achieve goals | CHANGE — build discipline | GLANCE — see progress
Background
UCSD’s Human-Computer Interaction specialization on Coursera requires students to complete an interaction design capstone project. This is a ten weeks process, taking participants from theme, observations and idea stages to prototype, A/B testing and chi-square analysis. Here is the story of my journey to the prototype “iNspire”!
Need Finding / Concept Development
After going through the three briefs provided to us, and applying it to my real life experiences, I chose to apply principles of all three briefs, namely: Time, Change and Glance. Being a dancer and dance teacher, I know first hand:
- Teachers typically strive to inspire students to practice regularly on their own so they develop muscle memory,
- Students (typically middle school / high school / adults) try to do their best, but it is an extra curricular activity. So practice is neglected, and they do not see any quick tangible benefit — other than encouraging comments from their teacher.
- Parents would like to see their children shine on the stage / succeed, since this is a performing art.
After observations and interviews with various stake holders, it was clear that these issues were common for many extra-curricular and fitness related activities.
Teachers/Leaders need a way to — set feasible daily goals … to instill discipline of daily practice; — view progress at a glance … to define plan of action; — remind participants … to complete daily task; — give reward … to boost morale; — participate in challenge … to inspire others; — share progress … to encourage participant.
Participants need a way to— plan time … so they progress; — network with peers … to share goals; — connect with teachers … to gain guidance; — submit their progress … to gain support from family; — challenge peers … to have a healthy competition; —post success … to ‘feel good’ about discipline; — see progress over time … to see long-term benefit.
Parents need a way to — see challenges … to see goals for their child; — see current goals … to support their child; — see goals achieved … so congratulate their child; — offer awards … to boost achievement.
Thus, iNspire — an app for practice to prowess was conceptualized!
Inspiration and Paper Prototypes
After looking at the websites and various apps, it was identified that there were part-apps for different purposes, but none provided all the features deemed important and described in previous section.
Also the set of activities that could benefit from such an app grew daily. So, it was very easy to see that in addition to teacher and student, the app will also benefit leader and participants in a hobby group setting. Paper prototype was developed based on other inspirations too. It was a low-fidelity effort to just get early feedback with least effort.
Heuristics Evaluation and Wire-frames
Paper prototypes were soon put to test for Heuristics Evaluation using in-person walk through and with a peer over remote connection. I enlisted couple of family members for in-person HE (dance enthusiast and yoga enthusiast) and used inVision to create online iNspire Prototype, so a peer can go through it remotely.
Time to take the bitter pill of honest critique to find UX problems in the first revision of iNspire!!!
Online User Testing and A/B Tests
Thanks to Coursera, I came to know about User Testing, and it was so good to go through thorough User Testing videos of our prototypes! I loved their comments and various ideas they said they could use this app for…
It helped us to see how an uninitiated user could look at our prototype :-) And fix even small kinks in the prototype to make the users feel successful!
Here are samples of their frustrations and insightful comments:
“I felt like nothing was explained or put in context for the app. Pop up tutorials or an initial walk-through would have been beneficial. I did feel like I was shooting in the dark and just tapping to see what would pop up or where to click.”
“I love the idea of being able to connect students, parents, and teachers with extracurricular activities. It would be great to keep track of deadlines and meeting dates and to have the option for notifications”
“It’s a very intriguing idea for an application and something I feel would be awesome for a teacher of any kind.”
“Removing the icons at the bottom of the screen and only keeping the hamburger menu icon.”
Some suggestions from the User Testing videos are incorporated in the final version of iNspire app. And some of these could be reserved for next release!
A/B testing of iNspire v3 proved to be cumbersome… Though thanks to fellow students, problem was resolved to some extent.
Result from 25 users data collection from Google Analytics was not conclusive but it shows a clear trend to favor removal of fixed bottom nav-bar. As such, now iNspire v3 does not have fixed bottom nav-bar.
Show & Tell…
Here is the promotional video for iNspire on youTube:
Latest iNspire prototype: https://goo.gl/QGCYd0
But if that does not work for you, see here: https://marvelapp.com/4ihhbab/
A post for iNspire is created on Facebook Coursera HCI Design page. And the Medium published link will also be tweeted!
Reflections
Going through capstone project has been a very valuable experience. Deadlines really help procrastinators and Libras!!! Many thanks to all brilliant peers on this course — some are just entering the field of UX like I am and others have been working in the field… Designs, tools used and project plan clearly demonstrate this.
iNspire prototype is still far from complete… Parent’s functionality is yet to be sketched out. Connect option from the app concept also needs to be flushed out. However, I think that the best enhancement thought came from UserTesting tester — to add an option to upload an image/video and add an optional reflection comment.
Heartfelt Thanks!
Many thanks to the Coursera/UC San Diego team, Scott Klemmer, Elizabeth Gerber, Jacob O. Wobbrock and all visiting members for hosting such a fun and practical course that has given me the design skills I had been trying to learn for a while. I’m amazed at how easily you all wove in different work-environments, tools, tests, and reporting methods!
Thank you to my fellow specialization students for always giving constructive feedback and valuable insights. I appreciate all your comments and support!