Feb 28, 2021
Interaction Design Specialization: Capstone Project
Project Name: SCM Report-to-Task
Conceptualized UI prototype by Tham Chin Soon (1 March 2021)
Purpose — Turning raw report data into actionable insights, with task management feature.
Interactive Prototype URL on InVision https://thamsoon896231.invisionapp.com/console/share/GP28PF112W
Step 1: Finding Inspiration in Problems
Have you worked with Excel files that contained too many tabs? With columns from A to AZ & beyond? I have, I still do on daily basis.
The pain point — After patiently waiting for the file to finish loading, then I am dumbfounded because I do not know which tabs/column/rows to start!
Even after a few tries, I would have learnt where to navigate… But I will still need wrangle the data with filter, lookup functions & pivot table in order to shortlist the spreadsheet into more manageable list.
It’s too tedious! By the time I am done shortlisting, I would have lost most of my mental energy to do the higher value-added tasks.
Step 2: Mission Statement
To develop an app that can (1) shortlist data, (2) generate actionable insights, (3) manage tasks altogether.
Here is my favorite quote from a behavioral economist — Richard Thaler:
‘If you want people to do something, make it easy’
Step 3: Drafting Prototype
Once I conceptualized the app structures, I sketched them out on pieces of papers.
In early stage of ideation, a low fidelity prototype like this allowed me to generate ideas and improvise freely.
If I don’t like what I drew, I can just throw them away and sketch out a better interface within 2 minutes.
Step 4: Heuristic Evaluation
Hearing out other point of views can help us refresh our design thinking. From there, we may assess users’ feedback to incorporate or omit certain features in the initial prototype.
The top 3 most useful evaluations that helped me improve the prototype.
- Flexibility — The navigation flow should be uninterrupted, users are free to explore new page and revert to previous page
- User control — Users should be able to freely adjust their selections with minimal steps required
- Recognition over recall — The new interface and navigation flow should somewhat resemble the legacy interface that the users have been accustomed to.
Step 5: Original vs Alternate Design
A progress bar is added to the alternate design as treatment factor.
I was hoping that this feature can help users manage their work time expectations and have an overview on their current progress.
In A/B Testing later, I would hypothesize that the alternate design will have higher overall user satisfaction and efficient task management ratings.
Step 6: A/B Testing
Dummy independent variable: Presence of progress bar
Dependent variables: User satisfaction rating & task management efficiency rating
Hypothesis: Progress bar feature contributes to higher user satisfaction rating and task management efficiency.
Result:
The result does not align with the hypothesis.
The progress bar added aesthetic value to the interface, which contributed to higher user satisfaction rating.
However, participants reported that the progress bar did not help in better task management efficiency. Because the overall steps are simplified enough, progress bar is redundant in tracking progress. Moreover, it occupies some interface real estate and does not conform to the minimalist UI principle.
Decision — Since the progress bar does not have practical value other than aesthetics, I will omit this feature in the final prototype.
Step 7: Building Prototype
For non-graphic designer like myself, I made use of PowerPoint to construct all the prototype screens. Later on, I uploaded the screens in jpg format to InVision and hyperlink all the clickable hotspots.
Final Interactive Prototype URL on InVision https://thamsoon896231.invisionapp.com/console/share/GP28PF112W
Step 8: Certificate earned on 15 March 2021
After cramming 10 months worth of workloads within 5 months since November 2020 (to save Coursera monthly subscription fees)…
I am proud to share this accomplishment of mine in 2021.
I look forward to creating humane workflows and interfaces at work!
Verify here:
https://www.coursera.org/account/accomplishments/specialization/certificate/J5RRPXJN4K93
