As a part of the CareerFoundry UX Immersion course, I completed the following project and gained various design skills that will be used to propel my career as a UX Designer.
Expert App is a mobile-first application designed to enable anyone, anywhere to instantly chat with an expert in virtually any field. The following outlines my design process.
Many of us like to try new things and venture out on our own to complete DIY tasks.
Whether we're remodeling our home or planning a party, we don't always have the answers to every question, or the technical "know-how" of a trained and skilled professional.
A social networking platform, designed to connect “the novice” with “the expert” in virtually any field, to help accomplish “the task” at hand.
As a part of the CareerFoundry UX Immersion course, I completed the following project and gained various design skills that will be used to propel my career as a UX Designer.
Expert App is a mobile-first application designed to enable anyone, anywhere to instantly chat with an expert in virtually any field. The following outlines my design process.
To better understand the user, I conducted interviews hoping to gain more insight with the following research goals:
The interview data was analyzed and organized using afinity maps which resulted in the development of detailed user personas.
The Personas then helped to develop the features that would be required to help the user achieve their goals. I mapped out these ideas using task analysis and user flows.
Once I gained a better sense of who my user was, I began sketching some low-fidelity designs before starting the user testing process. After the basic idea for the layout of the app was developed into mid-fidelity wireframes, I created a prototype that would be used for testing.
I conducted 6 moderated in-person studies to get an overall sense of the usefulness of the app and to determine the level of usability. I wanted to identify any areas for improvement as it related to the main feature (connecting with experts) and to simplify the process to ensure that users can conveniently accomplish their goals.
To determine the participant’s learnability of navigating the app and if they understand it’s main features. Can users successfully:
One out of the six participants was able to complete all of the tasks without any errors. The other five participants completed all of the tasks, but made a few errors along the way. Each participant agreed that the prototype was fairly easy to use but provided helpful feedback that I used to make minor improvements.
When scheduling a meeting, participants bypassed the meeting type and immediately clicked on the expert’s calendar. The process to schedule a meeting was also too long.
Change the date and time selection from a calendar, to a drop down menus This will allow users to understand that each process holds the same value and is equally important.
The size of the featured category on the home screen is too large which limits the landscape of the screen for additional categories.
Redesign the home screen to include more categories by adding a swipe feature for the “featured categories” section.
Decreasing the size of the heading will also draw more attention to the search bar for keyword searches.
Users wanted to scroll down to view more search results. The set of breadcrumbs at the bottom of the page confused users since they naturally wanted to swipe up and down.
Remove the breadcrumbs from the search results page and allow users to scroll down for more options.
Overall, each participant appeared to easily navigate the app. The main changes involved scheduling a meeting which is a primary feature of the app and simplifying the process will make for a better experience for our users. The redesign of the home screen also makes the purpose of the app more clear which will improve the overall learnability of the app.
I took the user feedback and the results of the studies to update and revise the prototype in order to improve the overall usability of the app.
The results of the usability tests were used to develop the high-fidelity ptototype - check it out below!
With additional peer feedback, and design revisions, I developed the final UI for the app.
