My Role: Team Lead · UI Designer
Scope: Class project · 1 month · 6 students
Tools: Axure RP · Adobe Illustrator
Practices: Literature Review · Competitor Analysis · Paper prototyping · Wireframe · Usability Testing · Branding
Overview
This is a class project I worked on during summer 2017. Within 4 weeks, we iteratively designed an Android mobile application transforming the tedious decision making process to a fun crowdsourcing social platform.
What should I eat for lunch?
At least once in our life, we have asked ourselves, which restaurant should I go for lunch? Half an hour slipped through in a second as we wondered where should we head. It seems that everyone has hard time making these trivial decisions, which consequence won’t make much differences in our life. Yet these mundane decision making process ate up our time and energies without us noticing. Furthermore, we were emotionally influenced along the way and ultimately make choices that are unsatisfactory.
Why aren't the existing solution working?
There are plenty of Q&A forums and Apps in the world. We are curious why with so many established solution out there, people still struggle with making decisions for trivial issues. Through competitor analysis, we found out that all of the available tools all focused on solving more serious rather than trivial problems in life. This discover helped us settle on the the direction of our design:
Let’s make a fun tool solving trivial yet necessary issues!
Synthesis User’s Problems
We drafted personas and storyboards to guide idea generation. Sketching these storyboards helped us stand in users' shoes to think what tools will solve their problem in these specific occasions.
Analyzing user scenarios helped us make the decision to design a native App that allowed users to ask trivial questions on the go and use some help from friends or strangers through voting to make the hard decisions.
Prototyping
We started with paper prototyping in order to get quick feedback from potential users. We took a divergent approach by having each of our teammates sketch 1 possible interface before we tested the ideas. With these easy-to-fix prototypes, we wanted to find out the information architecture that matched user's mental model best.
Create Interactive Mockups
teaching other teammates to use Axure RP
Mid-fidelity wireframes made with Axure RP
Test it Out
After showing potential users our 7 different sketching prototypes, we concluded the following 3 insights & corresponding goals for next iteration.
Users expressed preferences toward simple and clear interface
Users wanted to use the Dice function on multiple pages
Users were confused by the commenting and sharing function
Redefine Information Architecture to ensure clear navigation
Make Dice function accessible on multiple pages/without log in
Conduct A/B testing on 2 designs with different comment concept
During the second round of user testing, we observed users interact with our prototype and interviewed them afterward. We mainly focused on letting users vote on the two different prototypes. Users showed preference towards the commenting methods in prototype 2. Considering users are more likely to use the application on the go, we decided to implement it as a native App.
The Emotion
The main emotion we want to convey is fun. We want our users to enjoy the decision making process. Thus we went for playful typography and vibrant colors.
Final Design
Feed
Offers random questions waiting for your answers
Answer
Answer other's questions with a simple click & earn easy points to ask more customized questions
Ask
Publish your questions, and let the crowd help you decide
Randomizer
Or roll a dice to make decision in a second
Profile
Retrieve History & enjoy fun achievement system
