MyPalHal
MyPalHal
Hello, I am Ruben C. Vasquez, a Psychology major/Computer Science minor at California State University, Monterey Bay. Over the course of this semester, I was enrolled in a Human-Computer Interaction course, where we learned about how to conduct proper evaluations and user testability on different interaction designs. This class was very dense in conducting research and developing our application design that makes us unique from others.
The first task was conducting our heuristic evaluations in our own assigned groups. My group and I were tasked with evaluating the golden gate theatre, located in downtown Monterey. The website was primarily for users to find out who and when a performer is playing and buying tickets to attend the event. From a user standpoint, this process was fascinating because it showed us how much a poorly crafted design could deter me from being a buying customer. However, from a professional perspective, I was able to identify each heuristic errors and was able to work with my group to create a suitable solution.
For our second task, the class and I were tasked with carrying out our interview. The topic was primarily on how students can take care of their mental health while dealing with a massive schedule (school, work, relationships). The individual that I was fortunate enough to interview was a student manager at the local radio station for California State University, Monterey Bay. I talkED him for around five through nine minutes and asked opened questions to keep him engaged. He kept on giving back dense answers, which provided an ample amount of information about how he deals with his everyday problems. After, I thanked him for his participation and evaluated my process of being the interview. Some flaws I found within myself was my own mistakes when it came to administering the questions and my behavior while listening to my participant’s answers.
The most significant task my team and I were assigned was to create this app that helps the students with their mental health issues. At first, we didn’t know how to engage this project, especially with dealing with such a sensitive topic. Thus, my group and I began by brainstorming different ideas. We created four aspects that would contribute an ample amount of harming a students mental health. The four aspects were health, career, school, and personal life. Then, we began writing down different issues within those elements and began to see various patterns within our brainstorming. We found out that of the most prominent problems with students was substance abuse while working a busy schedule and going to school full-time.
Thus we created an application that was centered around our very own artificial intelligence called Hal. Hal is our friendly ai, with algorithms to detect and understand how to chat with our users. The users also have an option to talk to another user who is also experience the same issues, thus allowing our app to create a community. From there, our most targeted users were students who are dealing with substance abuse issues around the campus. We are informed on how problematic this problem is and why some students may often feel alone. Thus leading them to use this substance to escape their emotional crisis.
However, before starting the creation of our application, my team and I began to conduct a comparative analysis to determine what other products are already out there. We searched through the five applications (picture below) that were relatable to our app. The applications each carried their pros and cons, and their unique designs that were more additive for the users to utilize. Thus, leading to my group and me to brainstorm how we can create an app that is different from our competitors, and still, deal with the same issues.
Nevertheless, we begin creating our app by carrying out interviews with around three students. The students informed us about their issues with mental health around the campus. My group and I learned from the conversations that another major problem on campus was the lack of mental health awareness. After we were finished with the meetings, we began by creating different personas to represent our targeted users. Our prime persona was named Josh; he is a much older student with a family and is currently a senior. His main problem, however, was the fact that he has been having a crisis beginning to develop and he ultimately felt like he didn’t have anyone to relay on. He was a perfect persona to represent our targeted users because he fits every aspect of the criteria.
From there we moved on to creating our paper prototype. The paper prototype was helpful in trying to figure out our unique design. After, we wanted our plan to be simple, yet calm to use. And from there, we moved on to conducting early user testing and collecting data and statements from our users. The most significant issue we did run into was finding out if the users would be comfortable with chatting with an artificial intelligence by substance abuse. Some users did felt comfortable with talking to a bot because it provided a sense of confidentiality.
There on, we created our journey maps to develop a more clarity on how the users will move throughout the app. My group and I were looking for both the users and a professional standpoint to maneuver throughout the app. We constructed these maps to give us a more well-detailed idea of how the users will go through our app to complete their desired tasks.
From there, we began our first prototype testing with three students throughout the campus. While conducting the testings, we assigned each of our members a job so that we can gather our data as accurate as possible.The first user was confused on some aspects of the applications, such as what an avatar is and how the design didn’t make them feel calm. However, the other two users were the total opposite and had trouble in different aspects, where the first user shine through the most. This demonstrates to us that sometimes the users don’t know what they want in the design.
Thus, my group and I rushed to find a new model that appeals to our most targeted users. And finally, we came to a different design to help make us unique. The design we ended up adopting was a mixture of blue and white colors, with bubbles and squares with rounded corners to provided a more cool and appealing design.
Lastly, we finished our prototype and presented it to the class. Our final presentation of the application was a mixture between white and blue design with round corners to ease the user into being calm. We didn’t want to over crowd our user with a copious amount of options and information, thus we went for a more simple design and made the task as easier to conduct.
Overall, it would be interesting to see this app become an actual product. I do believe having this kind of application among college students would help make a difference throughout all colleges and not one. The reason why is due to the central issue it is tackling, and the solution it provides for substance abuse. However, the only downfall is that my team and I currently have no connections. Thus we’ll put this project on the side for now.
