First Experiences in Low-Fidelity Paper Prototyping
In my capacity as a student at RED Academy, I was assigned a relatively simple project in which I was tasked in designing a working prototype of a mobile app. This was to be done after interviewing a subject, and determining a need in their life that said app could potentially assist with. This was a practice in applying and understanding different UX design techniques as they became necessary through the process.
Learning through cooperation.
For this project, I was initially tasked with partnering with a classmate. Throughout the week we were expected to cooperate with each other as we facilitated our respective projects as being subjects for the others’ work. I was to interview my subject, Jason, for general knowledge about himself and what his day-to-day life is like, and then narrow the focus of my interview questions in such a way that I might be able to identify an aspect of his life that could stand to benefit from the application of a personal mobile app that I could design for him.
Research
While the goal for this project was ultimately to design an idea for a mobile app to be of some use to my subject, I initially knew practically nothing of my subject, which is where a variety of interview questions were called for. These questions could be divided into two tiers, the first batch had a more broad approach in mind, designed to produce responses from Jason that would give me a general sense of what his life is like these days. The second tier were narrower in focus, designed to produce responses that would tell me what devices he commonly uses, what his home life is like, what aspirations he has for himself and his family, and what general frustrations he may experience from time to time.
Through my time spent speaking with Jason, I discovered a number curious aspects of his life that might have taken me some time to discover under normal casual social conventions. While learning details such as the fact that he grew up in the Greater Toronto Area and is interested in computers and other popular forms of technology might have been easy enough to glean in a first meeting with him, I also discovered he’s got a home in Markham, with a wife and kids. He has a history of working in careers geared towards Computer Science, Culinary Management, and even Graphic Design for a newspaper company. Various aspects of these jobs did not sit well with him, such as the poor hours in the culinary world, or the repetitive nature of his work in the specific graphic design position he held.
When not at work, he was also diligently dedicating himself to his home life, delivering his children to-and-from school, spending quality time with them and his wife, and tucking his children in at night.
Whether intentional or not, Jason proved very adept at filling in all the parts of his day. An interesting reveal came up in my final question to him, when I asked what he finds difficult to accomplish on a daily / regular basis…what to do with free time. This came as a surprise to me, as I might have wondered if keeping up his routine between work and familial obligations would be the more likelier source of stress for him, not true. Between tucking his children in at night, and when he himself might go to bed, Jason occasionally encounters moments of free time he is unable to plan for, leaving him with a sense of indecision regarding what to do with his time. Jason also briefly described similar moments when he’s out-and-about in the city when also encountering surprise moments of free time, where is indecision might be magnified due to his larger number of choices outside of home.
Sympathizing with Jason over similar difficulties in making choices in my own life, I saw an opportunity to develop something that could benefit him (and others in situations similar to his). Applications such as Yelp may point out interesting restaurants in a user’s vicinity, Foursquare may point out general points of interest through the process of “gamification”, Google Maps will allow one to search their vicinity with the use of keywords, and services such as Apple’s app-store may point out to you trending items, but the hurdle to users such as Jason in all these situations, is that they all simply “present” data to a user. Or to put it another way, the user has to already have a decent sense of which activity they wish to engage in. What I saw in my conversation with Jason was the sprouting of an idea, Jason’s difficulty wasn’t the lack of choices available, but the struggle in the ability to actually choose…this is where I came up with my app idea, “Choice Coach”.
Planning
My planning phase began with some very rough sketches of how I envisioned the interface to appear, as well as a storyboard of Jason’s need and what his basic experience with the app could be, but mainly focused on a bullet-pointed list of how I envisioned the process itself to work out once the user opened up Choice Coach. The user is initially prompted to to choose between a stationary or non-stationary activity. Choosing the former will bring them to another decision making point, where the specify whether they have only a little bit of time, or a fair amount. Choosing “a little” will bring up a choice of a couple of trending mobile games, while a fair amount will produce a trending podcast, video, or album of music.
Going back to the beginning of user flow, choosing non-stationary activities will prompt a different set of choices. Users will then chose between “eating / drinking”, “culture”, or “shop”. For each choice, they will be offered three different items pertaining to that (ex. “Eat / drink” will prompt them with choices of fast food, restaurant, or bar). After which, a google maps keyword search will occur for this item, enabling them with a location for this activity, as well as directions. All items will be within a three kilometre distance of the users location, thus allowing for a minimum of walking (30 minutes max), and a purposely limited amount of choices, to better avoid a chance of “locked up” by having too many choices at hand.
Features
- The decision making making tree of Choice Coach is the core feature of this singularly focused app.
- At any step in the process, users are empowered to hit a “back button” should they reconsider their choice at that point.
- In addition to potentially aid in future decision-making sessions, there’s a “history” button one may press on the bottom menu, to track their previous final choices.
- On the left side of the bottom menu is a “Favourites” button, for choices users wish to keep with them in the future.
- In both the “history” page and the “Favourites” page are sharing options for personal or social media purposes.
Design
For the design process, I wrote out in bullet point list of how I envisioned the user flow process to play out. My reason for this was to minimize the amount of corrections I might have had to make during the design of the user flow diagram itself, which proved helpful.
Following these came my design mockups for the interface itself. Keeping the with the motif of limited choices and minimal amount of complications, I kept the design relatively simple in it’s scope.
The excitement came in the assembling of the working prototype using Marvel . Seen in an interactive fashion through it’s online demo HERE.
Usability Testing
After construction of this working prototype was complete there were minimal issues to tweak. The single update I had made was the inclusion of the “back button” function in the decision making process, recognizing the potential of a change of heart in the user.
Summary
My experience with this process was an amazingly fulfilling one. As I’m new to this form of design experience, I experienced a fair amount of self-doubt in my abilities with such an experience. However, by the end of it, I had to admit to myself that maybe that worry wasn’t as warranted as I had initially thought. I enjoyed this opportunity not just to exercise my creativity, design, and organization skills, but to able to employ myself in the challenge of helping someone find a solution to a personal need they have had for some time. I can think of a number of people in my personal life that might benefit from an app such as Choice Coach, and it’s exciting to know I designed a singularly unique experience that can fill that niche need for them and others like them.
