Pro-to-typing...

The Theory

The design team will now produce a number of inexpensive, scaled down versions of the product or specific features found within the product, so they can investigate the problem solutions generated in the previous stage. Prototypes may be shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments, or on a small group of people outside the design team.

This is an experimental phase, and the aim is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages. The solutions are implemented within the prototypes, and, one by one, they are investigated and either accepted, improved and re-examined, or rejected on the basis of the users’ experiences.

By the end of this stage, the design team will have a better idea of the constraints inherent to the product and the problems that are present, and have a clearer view of how real users would behave, think, and feel when interacting with the end product.

The Reality

As unfortunate our current reality might look, it is also important to celebrate the advantages it brought up for our research. Being an online-based research it allowed us to reach our target group, 100% Remote Workers, in a more efficient and easier way.

After a thorough meeting, the group agreed on a specific way the two apps were going to be promoted in order to collect feedback. The main objective of this prototyping phase was to collect a first round of feedback on which relying the improvements of the app/apps, in order to then have a final prototype idea for the final Testing Phase. Multiple rounds of prototyping and testing processes were expected from the beginning of the assignment, as we agreed for it to be the best way of delivering a good, tailored and quality product.

The Second Round of Prototyping

The first round of Prototyping was a success, in the first round of testing everybody could notice the excitement and curiosity the interviewees were expressing when introduced to the apps idea with a storytelling. So after collecting the respective feedbacks, we met up and started a brainstorm session on the characteristics the two apps should have. Through the app's designs we tried to best represent the idea and character behind the user interface. As learned in the Marketing class, we opted for different styles in order to match the message we wanted to express with the 2 applications.

Let's dive into the single designs:

Third and (hopefully) Last Round of Prototyping

The stakes had never been this high. A lot of pressure was put into this thirst round of Prototyping, from all sources. Team members were expecing it to be the last version of the final app, but as also described in the Third Ideate Phase, it was not easy to come up with one design that would satisfy everyone's needs.

After making the decision to create a completely different new App that would include both application's best features, everybody was aware that this design had to be perfect. Online meeting to figure this last design out were long and stressful, even some internal discussions appeared, but it was not enough to stop us.

We combined forces and decided to first go through all feedback collected so far and then combine them into this new App which was meant to not only take care of sending the user new daily challenges (mainly to help him/her with the social aspect and encouraging offscreen time), but also reminding the user of its priorities and keep a healthy environment in their physical and mental daily online routine. As soon and the new design was ready, it was asked to all team members to have one more round of feedbacks to finalize the third round of Testing.

Semi-Final G12 App Design

Last Touches

The latest improvements applied on the applications came from the last round of testing and were the following:

• Add Google as a login method

• Change Snapchap with a more common social media

• Final touches on the readability