So how’d we do it?
Phase 1: Preliminary Research
Preliminary research exploring this product idea included interviews with individuals who had families of their own to gain insight into their needs and expectations in an application of this type.
Interview analysis showed the often chaotic nature of family life. Those involved in this research proved families use a variety of methods for communicating, organizing and scheduling as well as sharing information with their families in various contexts. These days, it is common for a mother to Snapchat her son, but call her husband in order to pass on the same information. This requires an undesirable amount of mental work to notify multiple people of events, schedules or what have you via multiple communication methods.
In addition, some families still utilize traditional systems such as large calendars or whiteboards in the home that are inaccessible to them the moment they walk out the front door. That is another problem LifeHub aims to solve.
All of the participants recruited for the preliminary research phase of this project discussed various technology and applications they have utilized, showing they are all users of and well versed in the use of mobile applications that fall into the social and collaborative computing environment such as Snap Chat, Instagram, Facebook, Google Calendars or Evernote.
Phase 2: Paper Prototype
After preliminary research was conducted, low fidelity sketching resulted in the creation of a paper prototype to be used for further user testing that would later inform redesign of the system, allowing the designer to move into the high fidelity interactive prototype phase of the design process. While very different than the high fidelity prototype you see on this site, check out the paper prototype images that helped push further testing and lead us to the current design of LifeHub!
After the creation of the paper prototype, it was important to do some light testing before moving onto the high fidelity interactive prototyping process. In order to do so, one respective user was recruited. The user was asked to perform three tasks, thinking aloud and asking questions along the way, as well as interacting with and playing around with the interface to see its range of capabilities. The three tasks were to 1) add a new note to the board, 2) edit a note on the board and 3) send a message via the chat feature. The prototype was manually manipulated by the researcher (myself) during validation with a representative user, using the various screens. This garnered a lot of important information to take into consideration before moving on.
In the bullet points below I describe the main take aways from the user testing that helped reform the design for the high fidelity prototype.
- Features not yet available for use until other functions are completed should be either not shown, or grayed out until their use is permitted.
- A “SAVE” or other validation measure should be included when allowing users to edit or change items.
- A HOMEPAGE button should be available for quick return to a recognized starting point.
- Pop Up Menus should afford users an obvious exit.
One of the most important considerations taken into account in the testing of this prototype was user’s concern that the application operated solely in landscape form. While any applications can operate in both portrait or landscape, portrait is the must have. Operating an application in landscape when on the go or in a hurry can often be a much more tedious task than doing so in portrait mode. The redesign took this into consideration. Redesigning the application so that its natural user state was portrait mode took some serious thought and some important design decisions, but overall it worked out beautifully!
Phase 3: Interactive Prototype
After creation and testing of the paper prototype, it was time to start building a clickable, interactive and dynamic prototype! The creation of the dynamic prototype was aided from the feedback gained from the paper prototype as well as continued ideation and thought on the project. Proto.io web application was utilized during the design, prototyping and previewing of LifeHub. This allowed for LifeHub’s main functionality including basic navigation and sample screens and pages to be showcased and used for further testing and improvement.
Phase 4: Usability Testing
After creating the interactive prototype it was important to continue user testing to reiterate and refine the design and functionality of LifeHub as needed. 3 participants were recruited utilizing the designers social network to elicit participation and feedback and were walked through the application by the designer. Participants were not asked to go through and complete the tasks alone as one may do in other types of usability testing (observation), but rather the task list was used to show and guide the user through the interface while simultaneously interacting with the designer and describing aloud their thoughts while walking through and interacting with the prototype, making appropriate comments or sharing their thoughts on the interface and its interactions.
Performing these usability tests resulted in useful feedback for the Prototype. Summarized in the bullet points below are the main points users pointed out for
- Notes should be editable after being posted to the note feed
- Notes should be enlargeable when scrolling through note feed
- Users should not be dropped at home screen after deleting a chat
- Chat icon colors should contrast more with the background color of the application
- Users should have options to more note templates
Next steps:
In the future, implementation of the above mentioned features and more rounds of usability testing is needed to continue the development of this prototype! Once suffice, the project will be ready to move onto development!
LifeHub 