Embedded Files
Project Overview
The Get Your Self Together (G.Y.S.T.) app is a planner app intended to assist users with their everyday lives, by providing them with an effective method of planning and scheduling their lives on the go. Various expert and user methods, such as heuristic evaluations and user testing, were used in the product design process of the app. The team of researchers discovered user centered issues, such as data visualization, progress monitoring and personalization, in existing competitor planner apps which were taken into consideration and then addressed within the final prototype of the G.Y.S.T. app.
Methods
User Personas - Implemented to represent a target audience to effectively support the analysis of the applications
Niko
Goals
Keep track of class assignments, extracurriculars, familial responsibilities, & social plans with minimal loss.
Have an incentive driven organizational method.
Wants to be able to view his schedule on the go as well as progress monitoring to see how efficient he is being.
Olivia
Goals
Olivia wants to keep track of classes, assignments, work, extracurriculars and social plans.
She needs to be able to organize tasks at a pretty high level of detail and be able to easily interpret and add to her calendar.
Kyle
Goals
Keep track of work responsibilities and personal interests.
Prioritize certain activities with the ability to change priorities.
Keep track of his own ability to follow through with self determined goals and commitments.
Competitor Analysis - Identifying to what extent current systems meet user needs, highlight potential usability problems, as well as discover what aspect of current systems works best for the users
Weaknesses: 2 out out of 3 apps performed poorly in the areas of Data Visualization, Progress Monitoring, and Personalization. All three of these areas are important to our personas who wish to:
Quickly look at the app for important information
Maintain motivation through progress monitoring
Personalize features to optimize personal organization
The context of use for these apps will be analyzed and tasks will be created for testing derived from user goals and competitor weaknesses.
Context Analysis - Understand the context of use and how various factors will affect the quality of user experience as well identify potential usability issues
Task Analysis - Identifying what actions or cognitive processes a task requires by going through the action of executing the task to understand the steps taken to achieve said task
Goals, Operators, Methods and Selections (GOMS) based task analyses were created for three tasks derived from user goals and competitor weaknesses:
Organize Tasks
Manage Tasks
View Recent Progress
These task analyses will be used during both heuristic evaluation and user testing.
Organize Tasks
Manage Tasks
View Recent Progress
Heuristic Evaluation - Reviewing the interfaces against accepted usability principles to highlight possible usability issues
Three user experience experts collectively reviewed the three different competitor apps using Nielsen guidelines on three goals:
Organize Task
Manage Task
View Recent Progress
Apps scored on a scale of 1 (not fulfilled) to 10 (completely fulfilled)
Materials:
Smartphone, 3 competitor apps (Chipper, Tick Tick, Planner Pro)
User Testing - Identify usability issues and evaluate user experience of apps key features by conducting a moderated task-based usability test
Design Thinking - Using feedback and results from the user testing and heuristic evaluation to inform decisions and generate ideas for the prototype
Step 1: Brainstorm
User experience data (survey responses and user quotes) were discussed. Competitor feature preferences were noted and informed ideas for features to be included in the prototype of GYST.
Step 2: Recommendations
Recommendations were made for features of GYST based on brainstorm which included: a simpler navigation system with pop up menus to add/change information, making the progress page part of the apps navigation bar, as well as using a calendar view with a scrolling bar at the bottom of the page.
Step 3: Sketch
Low fidelity sketches were created by implementing recommendations from the brainstorm into a first draft of what the interface of GYST might look like.
Prototyping - Providing a preliminary draft of the product that conveys intent behind design and allows users to explore ideas with some base interaction
Google Sites
Report abuse