Project 1: Designing a mobile app based on a user’s situation
by Shinhwa Koo
Intro
Project Scope: This is the first project at General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive Program under the instruction of Susan Wolfe. Students got into pairs to carefully question about each other’s interests and find a problem that could be solved with the design of a simple mobile app. The project led us to explore various UX Design methods including user interview, competitor research, rapid ideation and paper prototyping.
Tool: Paper, pens, pencils and a scissor
Duration: 3 days
Step 1 — User Interview
After taking the lecture about how to conduct effective and informative user interview, I had a chance to talk with my designated partner Elain Lok. First, I asked her to describe her daily routine especially for the day before the interview was conducted. She answered me with detailed description of her schedule starting from morning to night which later allowed me to find out two problems she encounters — morning commute and meal prep. As there are a number of existing meal prep apps that are efficient and simple, I decided to design a mobile app for her to reduce the stress of morning commute.
The main problem of Elaine’s morning commute is that she has to take a very crowded bus for 45–50 minutes from Daly City to San Francisco to come to GA. Despite of the stressful situation, she takes a bus for her commute because it is the cheapest and it gets her to the destination on time. Therefore, my project goal was designing a mobile app that provides an alternative transportation which is not crowded but affordable and timely.
Step 2 — Competitor Research
I conducted competitor research to know about what other transportation services provide and what would be their strength and weaknesses. The summary of the research result is that ride-sharing mobile applications such as Uber and Lyft are too expensive for the user who is a GA student and are often delayed in the commute times. Also, BART(subway) is slightly more expensive than MUNI bus and sometimes delayed due to signal issues.
Step 3— Ideation and Storyboard
Based on the user interview and competitor research, I came up with several design ideas that could help Elaine’s situation — staying in a crowded bus for 45–50 minutes every morning — and drew several sketches to hear her feedback.
Elaine preferred the idea about the mobile app which allows her to reserve a shuttle service by selecting the nearest pick-up and drop-off locations as well as a seat and arrival time so that she can have a comfortable trip and get to the destination on time. Between creating a new app and adding a shuttle service into Uber, I chose designing a new app as it gave me broader boundaries to customize features for my user. With the idea discussed, I created a storyboard that tells how the app could solve the morning commute issue.
Step 4— Paper Prototyping and Design Iteration
I produced paper prototypes for the shuttle app that include key screens and main features. Then those visual materials helped me to check in with the user to see what she liked about the app and what needed to be improved. In addition, through feedback sessions which allowed me to find out several design issues and consider further design development. Following images show how the design iteration proceeded based on the feedback sessions.
Step 5 — Finalizing Paper Prototypes
The final paper prototypes were created after design iterations. The first screen shows how users could start finding their pick-up and drop-off locations as well as arrival date and time to reserve shuttle service. Next screens would allow them to choose specific type of bus ranging from local to express and from cheaper to more expensive to ride. Users would also be able to select their seats and receive QR codes as bus tickets as well as bus tracking service after payment and reservation session completed. Here are the final version of paper prototypes that show these processes —
Next Steps
I would say the next steps for this project can be iterative process of UX/UI design as well as business modeling and analysis to actualize the design and business plan for the shuttle app. Continuous user research will be required in addition to further steps of prototyping and wireframing which would become valuable assets to conduct usability testing to develop the final product to be launched.
Project Feedback
I was able to learn a variety of UX Design techniques and practice the methods through Project 1. Especially, the feedback sessions went well in terms of having other people’s opinions without focusing on my own thinking process. I would conduct user research more carefully next time because it was challenging for me not to lead Yes or No questions to users as conversation continued. One of the most surprising part during the project was facing various opinions and feedback that people had which allowed me to understand how people think differently. In the presentation session, I felt like I was getting to know each other by hearing about individuals’ lifestyles, hobbies and interests.
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