Mind the GAPP.
Red Academy UX Design Project 1
Throughout our daily lives we are digitally bombarded with reminders of where we have to be and who we have to see, and often times those reminders loose their voice amongst the crowd. If we however find ourselves consistently pushing our personal lives out of the equation for more seemingly pressing priorities, we end up losing touch in many close relationships that we don’t tend to every day.
The Opportunity
The premise of Project 1 in the Red Academy UX program was to rapidly prototype a mobile app for one of our classmates, focusing hugely on the process and methods of researching our user. What I would like to do throughout this study is guide you through the process that took place and how I met my conclusions on the problem I faced.
THE RESEARCH
Throughout the research process there were multiple different steps that were taken, and re-taken many times in order for my design to properly echo the need of my client.
THE INTERVIEW
The first step of my research began a client interview. Jenny and I sat down and I conducted an interview that not only answered some of my questions about her, but I also really tried to capture the essence of who she is as a person. In order for me to create an accurate user persona I had to know not only what Jenny does for employment or what her demographic is, but also how she communicates, what about her hobbies makes her happy, and what her goals are as a individual. In order for me as a designer to properly empathize with my client I must have a thorough understanding of what kind of person they are. In this part of the process the goal is to gain a full knowledge of your client in order to first understand and then flesh out the problem.
This portion of the project was very new territory for me and it took a few follow-up interviews for me to gain a fuller understanding of my user, but also to identify what the direction of the project was. During the interview I was able to learn that Jenny originated from Indonesia, and that one of her large frustrations was finding time to stay in close connection with her family there. We met a few times after the initial interview to discus different aspects and I was able to confidently move on to the next step, which was creating her user persona.
USER PERSONA
Creating a persona for my client allowed me to have a summary of what the goals, behaviour, and history of my user are. In order for myself as a designer to create something my user can relate to and enjoy it is very beneficial to have a reference page to go back to.
While narrowing down all of the information I had percured I decided that I wanted to create an app that would essentially be a birthday reminder app, so I started researching other apps that are currently doing this.
There are a few birthday reminder apps, so I had a lot of information to derive from them, however none of the above completed the exact tasks that I had in mind. Although these were okay apps there were a few things that my user was looking for that they weren’t offering such as;
- Multiple Reminders
- Long Distance Family Communication
- Local Time of Far off Relatives
- Address and Phone Numbers
Realizing that this was a portion that was seriously lacking I had a very clear goal of a gap I could fill in my users experience.
THE PLANNING
From my previous step I was able to understand where I can improve on previous apps that have been created, so during the planning phase I had the chance to flesh out that process and was able to create a clear direction for my user. I knew that my app needed to include all the aspects that were missing from the other apps. So I began sketching, and creating a story board for my user.
STORYBOARDING
Storyboarding is a simple process which allows the designer to give a face or a human aspect to all of the data collected throughout the research portion. They also give a change of perspective from my own, and helps to create a history to your user. Story boarding was also a great opportunity for me to communicate the purpose of my app clearly. In my story board the scenario was that of someone whose already been using the app and gets notified that their mothers birthday is approaching and how much time it will take for them to send her a letter, or gift to preserve the personal touch that was important to my user. The app has a dashboard which contains information on the users family such as local time, mailing address, estimated shipping time, and an alert system that sends multiple alerts so the birthdays/significant dates aren’t missed.
THE DESIGN
At this step in the process I had a clear understanding of my user and their needs, the next stage was creating a user flow that works as a map dictating my users journey that will also later assist me in also creating a prototype for my user.
USER FLOW
The user flow is a diagram that really just visually maps out the exact steps my client would take to complete the task I have designed it for. Creating a user flow was a process to help myself and my Client or Developers understand the steps that it takes to navigate through the app. For my particular flow I designed for a very simple action of adding a birthday to one of the contacts profiles.
Designing the user flow really lays down the ground work for the next step in the process which is the prototyping/sketching!
PROTOTYPING
For my prototypes I used a software program called POP, which created hot spots on the images I had inputted and allowed my user to navigate through the prototype and give me feedback for usability.
My first edition had a few bumps that I discovered during the testing portion of the process.
https://popapp.in/w/projects/57ed34e460f7506946196ea8/mockups
In this prototype the most common errors occurred on pages 4 and 6.
The most common frustration was that I did not create hot spots throughout the whole page, only on the top two corners, so during my second prototype I re-sketched this page to be more interactive. Another idea that came from one of my client meetings was a suggestion that we add multiple alerts on page 6, which was added in the second prototype also.
The second rendition of the prototypes was much more successful as far as the user expereince and feedback I recieved from my testing!
TESTING
Through the testing process I was able to deduce what was working for my user with app and what points caused confusion throughout the flow of the prototype. During my Usability Testing I had 9 individuals work their way through the app when I simply prompted them by asking that they add a birthday to Mom’s profile. Throughout this process I watched and recorded what each user’s thoughts were as they went through each of the steps, 7 out of the 9 moved their way through the app in the same way and said it was easy to understand the flow, while 2 others found the settings bar and went through that way. Although it is a different way they eventually came to the same page and successfully added moms birthday to her profile.
CONCLUSION
My goal was to create a more intimate connection between long distance relationships by collecting all the information into one consolidated place and presenting it to the user in a clean and simple fashion. This process of rapidly prototyping an app really forced me to put all of my learnings into practise very quickly. One aspect of it that really surprised me was the depth of the research, and how helpful it was to the whole process to have a full understanding of your user!
