Reflection

What would you do differently?

We would definitely focus and spend more time on the user research part. We have a feeling that our current user research does not provide enough information about what the user wants and what their pain point is. This led to the result that we are continuously making design decisions based on our own experience, not our users' experience. If we have more participants, and if we are more sophisticated in doing user researches, then we'll definitely do a better job at designing the app and making it a better product.

What would you do if you had more time?

We would definitely increase the level of detail of our high-fidelity prototype. Our prototype now does present our design ideas and design language, but they lack important details to guide the users through the app and to make the users understand which part has what function. For example, the create event part has a toolbar. When editing the description, the users are confused by the toolbar icons, as they are not related to the content: the content is just a blank, gray space. But if we can add more draggable items to show that where we have a modularized text editor, then we can show the users how our design would be.

What was your biggest challenge?

Our biggest challenge would be to reasonably connect all our flows and frames. Our flows and frames target different users and complete different tasks. Though they are not closely connected, users do want to quickly switch from one photo to another. They want this indicator to be at a reasonable and easy-to-remember place. Our challenge is how and what can we use for our navigation system. We tried pop-ups and normal hamburger menus. Finally, we came to a solution of putting a bottom bar with all our functions as buttons on it. By doing so, users won’t have to learn how to switch between flows in our app, and they will know what function our design has from the first screen.

How did your team work together?

The most important thing that facilities our collaboration is definitely communication. All of us are on slack and are responsive replying to those messages. We also used the in-class studio time fully to discuss our project. We discussed our findings, and the next steps for our project; so everyone knows how long we have gone so far and what we are doing next. All of us try to maintain a good atmosphere for ourselves. For our group, so everyone feels welcome and relaxed to share their opinions or give others advice. There are four crucial parts of communication: shared purpose, clear roles and goals, trust and reliability, and psychological safety, We did well in all of them. That's why we form a good team and made great designs.

What was the most surprising thing in this project?

We are surprised at how user-centered design methods and research methods can really help us make better products. User interviews helped us get first-hand data from our direct stakeholders; personas gives us fictional characters that we can design for; storyboards and user journey maps helps us narrow down our usage scenario, and usability test let us discover areas to improve from a user’s point of view. All of these combined lead to a great product that our users love.