User Feedback and the Design Cycle
by Peter Chen
Going into week 4 and closing in on the conclusion of our five week-long journey, we had a good idea of what our app’s main usage and function was for and had developed prototypes. We all understood that the decisions we made during this time would be critical to our success in making an app that was suitable to the needs of the elderly. With that in mind, we needed to take the next step and acquire feedback from the users, in this case being the other students in the class.
The importance of user feedback is a critical component to the overall process of creating a meaningful product. Feedback provides valuable insight on design flaws, and these opinions from an outside perspective widen our ability to think of new ideas to make improvements to our app. After prototyping our app, it was necessary to take a step back and revisit the creative stage making use of the feedback given to us.

Day 1: User testing (and what we gained from it)
We split our team into two groups; one to stay and showcase our app to other inquisitive students in the class, while the other group was tasked to help in giving feedback to the other teams in the class.

We took initiative and started looking for teams to give input on their apps, and in return they would do the same. Soon, more and more teams showed up at our table, and we showcased our prototype digitally through InVision. We had another member of our group take notes to retain the information we received from these users.

As everyone began going back to their respective teams and the user feedback stage ended, we compiled a document that listed all of the feedback we were given. We realized that there were many things that needed improving, specifically the functionality of some features in our app. Many users commented on our need to improve certain design flaws, such as adding on to our event features, which admittedly had not been polished out at the time. Others had different ideas, including removing the “add event” button completely, or adding more buttons and options for the user.
With this all in mind, we began the process to take these ideas into account and improve our app even further. We knew that there were many things that needed to be done to improve our app, and this feedback validated our assumptions.

Day 2: Putting That Feedback to Use
On the second day of class for the week, we dedicated class time to putting the consolidated feedback to use and started designing a digital framework using Figma. We constantly referred back to our documented feedback as we all began to collaborate together in establishing a beta prototype.

We learned that user feedback is an invaluable asset when designing an app. Although we didn’t receive any feedback from the target group (the elderly), we still took what was given to us to heart and it has helped us immensely in creating a better app. All in all, we realized that user feedback is a necessity in product development and is imperative in moving the process of invention forward.

