Interaction Design Sprint

This week I created an app prototype that collected data for an animal census. The video of the demo is below:

Studio — The User

To get here, the studio was focused on brainstorming. First we examined what type of users would be interacting with our Citizen Science app. For example my group came up with parents with young children and college students. After the information was gathered, they were grouped with similar user types.

Studio — Data Collection

From there we examined what data these user might be collecting. From textual data, to numeric data, to geotagging photos. From there, as a class we again grouped our ideas together and viewed the class-wide brainstorm.

After this was finished, we used these ideas to draw an interaction flow and finally create a prototype. The prototype was drawn on index cards with flow in mind and converted using Pop (this is the video at the beginning of the post).

The Status Quo?

This Sprint brought up a few questions about efficiency and design. I was interested in the difference between the classic “list” design and creative UI designs that other students were drawing up and imagining. Was it a good idea to depart from what users were used to? Also, how efficient were the navigation menus that are so often put in apps. For example, in mine I originally decided to create a side menu that would go back to previous sections of the app, but the aesthetic appeal caused for a lot more issues in prototyping.

What I Enjoyed

In this project I enjoyed the drawing part of the app. Being able to put ideas into a visual, tangible prototype felt good. While brainstorming is a necessary step, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with creating something that is tangible like a prototype greatly eclipses the feeling of accomplishment from brainstorming in my opinion.