[DISCLAIMER: medium would not allow to upload images so I hosted them elsewhere and linked them here]
We all live in a very connected world. Be it via digital devices like our phones and computers, but also on a social level. All these devices facilitate an even more connected social-sphere for everyone. Be it voluntary or not.
But these threads don’t have do be a struggle to maintain, but can easily be handled with the same sources that entice them.
Coming into the last part of UCSD’s coursera class for Human Computer Interaction, our task was to basically scan our environment for UI-workarounds and learn from them.
When I visited my friends’ flat there sure were a lot of them. The one I found the most fitting to digitize was there way of distributing flat-wide task. After iterating a lot on prototypes I settled to focus on the task of grocery-shopping for the group. Things like item-lists, comments, assignment and distribution of budget seemed to be the part that generated the most tension.
So I set out to find a way to ease this tension.
In a ten-week long and very focused process of iterating on our observation, each student set out to finish with a working prototype to convey his/her idea.
Basically, “Flat-Maid” has become a communal grocery-list with interactive features and very clear design-guidelines to ease people into the process of getting their flat’s groceries done.
- all members of a group can edit the shopping list until the assigned shopper locks it (adding, removing and completing items)
- every item can be commented on for detailed instructions or discussions thereof
- multiple sections separate different stores (groceries, supplies…)
- budget gets either manually or automatically managed (via specified banking account)
- all expenses get automatically tracked, as well as the shares of each member
- a calendar brings and overview of the assigned weekly duties
Following this marvel-link, you will find the wizard-of-oz’d prototype that conveys some of the user experience paradigms to be found in a possible realisation of this project: https://marvelapp.com/3de0ahj
This week marks the final point in my journey with this class’s coursera studies. There were some lows, a lot of highs. I learnt some, I got frustrated, met interesting students, got a feel for studying again and will be left with a very interesting experience.
The most value i gained, were all the fields that this module scraped and started to generate interest in other fields for me. The class touched on design, user interfacing, user experience studies, statistics and more. With this it was easy to get a first impression, feeling for what those fields might entail. For that I am very grateful.
