GOJI — A Bucket List
Mobile Application Case Study
INTRO- A BUCKET LIST
Everyone has an idea of a few things they would like to do before they “kick the bucket.” In this age of social media, people are more inspired by others of what is possible and see what the world has to offer. But the dreams and goals that we would love to achieve before we die are 80% less likely to happen if we don’t write them down.
It also is nice to have a helping hand- whether that hand is a partner or someone giving experienced advice. The world is our oyster and too many people’s dreams have expired for one reason or another. The purpose of the Goji bucket list app is to provide hope for people to reach their goals. The application hosts a networking community that inspires people to add new goals to their list and learn from and/or with other people how to best cross the goal off the list.
CHALLENGE
A bucket list application that connects people with similar goals. Complete the design and build process within four weeks.
OUR TEAM
- 3 User Experience designers (myself included)
- 3 IOS developers (2 local and 1 remote)
MY ROLE
- Interviews and Research
- Gather Data
- Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi Wireframing
- Interactive Prototyping
- UI Design
THE PROCESS
- Identify the user
- Find tasks to meet users goals
- Establish usable task flow
- Create common aesthetic
- Test solution
- Refine
IDENTIFYING AND EMPATHIZING THE USER
To kick off the design process, I created a survey based on common and uncommon assumptions. Based on the answers to the survey questions, I interviewed people in person to help pinpoint the user’s story and goals.
“What motivated you to do things you had on your bucket list?”
By interviewing people in person (mostly street interviews) I found that most people who are in their mid 30s and older are uncomfortable and not willing to meet people from an app in person.
People who were in the age range late teens to thirties said that they were willing to meet people from an app.
Everyone said they would be willing to share their experienced advice to others whether it was on a large scale platform or a direct message.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER — THE FOUNDATION AND CENTER OF THE DESIGN
The user is somebody who’s bucket list is something that is personal to them- and at times private. A bucket list isn’t something they want to have on a rating system of popularity (likes, comments, etc.). But teaming up and retrieving first hand knowledge is a great tool for cutting costs and saving time.
User Persona - Center of design
Finding tasks to meet the user’s goals
As a team we started the story mapping process to find how the product can best meet the user’s goals-
- See the world and meet new people from other places.
- Feel inspired and have hope in achieving bucket list goals.
- Be someone with a story to tell.
Via story mapping process the team and I were able to simplify the product into three main sections of navigation.
- An inspirational feed that the user could explore before having to create an account. The user will also be able to search for bucket list goals in this section.
- 2) A messaging inbox for the users to connect with each other.
3) The Bucket List / Profile page
After story mapping with sticky notes, I created a site map that would portray hierarchy in the product.
By creating an inspiration feed, the user will be able to scroll through to feel inspired. It also motivates the user to add something to their list.
The user gains hope once they are able to see who has done this goal and view their advice. The user will also be able to view other people’s profiles to meet new people and broaden their network.
Establishing a Usable Task Flow
BASIC LO-FI SKETCHING AND WIREFRAMING
With the key features and pages organized, our UX team brainstormed sketches of each page of the app.
The brainstorming technique:
5 minutes spent individually designing each page.
We then merged our sketches into one page using Procreate on an iPad Pro.
We divided our Procreate sketches and designed them into Lo-Fi wireframes in Sketch. This helped create familiarity and a common aesthetic throughout the product.
WE COULD HAVE SAVED MORE TIME….
Taking all of the steps that we did in creating wireframes was a good way to refine the design and function of the app, however, our main challenge was time. I learned that we could have been more efficient by taking less steps.
Dedicating 5 minutes to individually sketch each page in the app was a great tactic in ideation, but, we didn’t need to do it for as many pages as we did. If I would do it over again I would have set 5 minutes for one or two pages for each three navigation sections: inspiration, messaging, and the profile/bucket list page(3–5 pages max). Then we would separate again and design our sections of wireframes in Sketch.
The goal in getting these wireframes done quickly was to conduct user testing with prototyped Lo-Fi wireframes as soon as possible. Time was our largest factor, and by sketching out every single wireframe set us back a little bit.
THE HIERARCHY OF THE BUCKET LIST AND A CHANGE
A main goal was for users to connect with someone that shares a common bucket list goal - and feel comfortable doing so. It was necessary for a user to have a profile and I thought that it would be best if that profile was the user’s bucket list itself. So when a user was viewing someone’s profile / bucket list, I thought that it would be best for the user to view background information such as age, where they are from, and a short bio so the user would feel more comfortable reaching out and sending a message.
The actual bucket list page evolved the most as we didn’t want the bio/profile take away from the hierarchy of the Bucket list.
Full navigation and each page of the App (without user onboarding)
USER TESTING
Key points that user testing helped emphasize in the product
Customizing a bucket list / colored tabs when customizing a goal
- User testing showed that some people would prefer categories to organize their list. But page real estate was limited and adding a color to the tab seemed to communicate well between the user and the product.
- The user would also be able to organize their list by moving the tabs (goals) to be in the order they want each tab to appear.
Message icon on someone’s profile
- At some point in the design phase the message button on the other user’s profile became overlooked. Testing the prototype with with other people reminded us to put it back in.
Icons with labels underneath vs. no labels
- Even though Goji app has 3 buttons of navigation (“ideas page”, “messaging page”, and “my bucket list”). The “my bucket list” icon and “ideas page” icon are not as common. When users tested Goji without the labels under the icons they would be guessing where they were navigating and were unclear which icon meant what. The labeled icons also help define the product.
GRAPHICS AND LOGOS
I created the graphics and logos for this app using a 10x10 strategy (crazy 8s). The goal was to create something simple that the user would easily be able to recognize no matter what the background image may be on their phone. Using the name Goji, it was essential to at least have a bucket for an icon to represent itself as a “bucket list app”.
OVER ALL..
I would say that the design was a success and I would be more than willing to make changes to the app if needed. I was fortunate to work and make friends with other awesome designers and developers. Our IOS devs had a few issues on their side and have not yet finished the product yet, but when it is done I can’t wait for people to download it from the app store to collaborate on bucket lists together.
