How to get a Moove on?
Story of making an application
I have been interested in design for a long time and working in product management for the Financial industry there’s always been many touch points to User Experience and Interaction Design, but I never had any formal training or qualification for terms like UX, CX or IxD. They were just abbreviations that everybody seemed to talk more and more about. Then late 2016 opportunity suddenly came knocking and I had a chance to study Interaction Design at UCSD.
Design Brief for our final project was Change. We should use technology to assist people to be better at their daily lives and help them to reach their goals.
Your Mission: Design an interface that facilitates personal or social behavior change
Design Brief sounded exciting and it was easy to start need-finding with interviews and user observation. I wanted to find out how people make their daily journeys, what transport methods they use and what are the problems they face every day. These sessions provided several opportunities and design breakdowns that laid the groundwork for my Point of View:
Lack of exercise, obesity and air pollution are huge problems. People live hectic lives and need a service that helps them to prioritize sustainable and healthy choices. This service needs to be beautifully crafted and make users feel special.
Further ideation and brainstorming followed, countless post-it notes were used and Inspiration Board started to form. I explored several inspiring apps and one really stood out, Forest: stay focused. The idea is wonderfully simple; plant a tree whenever you want to concentrate on a task. The tree dies if you use the phone before the set time is up. I recommend to have a look at it.
In the end I had two distinct ideas, both transport related but with different approach. It was time for some Storyboarding and Paper Prototyping.
I’m not much of an artist as you can see but that’s not the point. Storyboard is about the story — it’s about conveying how your solution will accomplish the user’s task and what is the sequence to get there. Or even more simply it’s about Who, Where, Why and How.
Things started to feel much more real when we did the first paper prototypes. Sure, paper prototypes are quick and easy way to get early feedback however as a designer suddenly you see see things taking shape and it’s exciting. Heuristically Evaluating paper prototypes with your peers gave lots of valuable feedback. Here’s a list of Heuristics that I used, they are not set in stone and can be modified to suit your needs.
Iteration was the word after testing and evaluating paper prototypes. It meant creating lo-fidelity Wireframes and navigational skeleton of the key screens, more testing, more feedback and adjusting the prototype. I used UXPin for wireframing but this could be done with Keynote or similar as well. I really like UXPin however had too many problems with screen transitions and in the end used UXPin to create screens and then exported them to InVision for screen transitions and animations.
After nine weeks of working we were at the stage where our products would be released into the wild and we could observe people use them. How exciting! We used User Testing to run A/B tests to get quantitative and qualitative feedback for key functionality. It’s little bit weird at first to see people across the globe using your product while giving running commentary of every screen. Here are some direct quotations from the testing sessions:
“I think this would be valuable to people who want to be healthy and want to have a minimal impact on the environment. This helps them to track it tangibly.” — user 2, USA
“This app is basically meant to remind people that you should always try to be a better person in the community and try to be the best of yourself in the community and the environment. “ — user 3, UK
“Version B bigger, more colourful buttons make the connection between my brain and fingers faster!” — user 1, Canada
Without further ado, let me present to you: Moove — app that makes your every day journeys fun, encourages you to make healthy and sustainable choices and challenges you to be a better person!
It’s been quite a journey, at times journey of desperation but mainly of discovery and learning. I had lot of late nights followed by early starts but it was absolutely worth it. Many thanks to all the teaching staff and visiting lecturers — Scott Klemmer, Elizabeth Gerber, Jacob O. Wobbrock to name few.
So would you give Moove a try — let me know in the comments!
