BookBuddy
Summary
The purpose of this project was to create the user interface of an app that solvved a problem of our choosing. Additionally this project allowed us to improve our skills using the Design Thinking Process, working collaboratively in a group, and learning a new design software.
Problem
The problem addressed in the project is that many people want to and like to read but are faced with challenges in their daily lives that restrict their reading opportunities. Some of these restrictions are a lack of motivation, forgetfulness, lack of engagement with traditional reading, and lack of desire to carry a book with them if they want to read outside their home.
This particular problem is significant to me as someone who used to be an avid reader as a child but has lost that enthusiasm due to the struggles and complexity of daily life. Additionally, I face many challenges personally while reading, such as forgetfulness, lack of accountability, and lack of mental engagement and stimulatio. This app provides a solution for these challenges, which increased my investment and passion for this project.
Proposed Solution
To solve this problem, my team and I developed an app that would match users with each other based on their reading preferences and which books they were looking to read. Matched users would then be able to simultaneously read a book and share annotations, comments, and other forms of communication. This creates a sense of accountability, increases the social aspect of reading, and supports higher levels of engagement within the app.
My Contribution
I contributed equally to the initial stages of research and development. In the later stages of development, I focused on creating movement and interactions within the app screens to improve the user experience while using the app.
Design Process
Empathize
Interviews
Empathy Maps
Themes
Define
Personas
User Journey Maps
Ideate
Creative Matrix
Prototype (Low-fi)
Wireframes V.1
Moodboard
Prototype (Hi-fi)
Hi-fi V.1
Hi-fi V.2
Empathize
In the empathize portion of this project, I interviewed three people with different reading habits and personal life challenges. These participants were Kristi, Barbie, and Sierra. Kristi is a librarian who primarily reads physical books and has issues with accessibility features when reading digitally. She provided good insights into which features would be critical for accommodating different needs for different difficulties. Barbie reads primarily digitally and provided good information regarding which features from her current reading app were the most helpful and beneficial to the reading experience. Sierra reads both physical and digital books and is younger than the other interviewees. She struggles with reading consistency and forgetfulness, and provided good insight into the features that would help her with these issues.
Individual Interview data
Themes
Define
During the define phase, I assisted in choosing which information from all of the interviews would be the most beneficial to include in each persona. This also led to the decisions regarding what would be the most accurate and diverse representation of our target audience. After those steps were completed, I primarily focused on inputting information into the user journey maps and persona cards, while the overall design and formatting were handled by Ronnie and Hannah.
Personas
User Journeies
Ideate
In the ideation phase of the design process, we created a Creative Matrix. This consisted of each group member contributing 24 ideas for features or properties we believed to be beneficial to the project. From the creative matrix, 6 out of my 24 ideas were chosen to be in the next stage of development. These ideas were: progress goals, allowing for unique criteria while matching with buddies, surprise perks and special offers, allowing users to leave matches or disconnect from a buddy, allowing users to choose what information was public, and providing intuitive places to receive user feedback. Most of my ideas were agreed to be part of the overall app plan and function, but they were not particularly relevant to the tasks that were chosen to be fully developed. However, my ideas for perks and special offers and user feedback helped shape the end-of-the-book survey that is offered.
Low-fi Prototype
Wireframes
The sketches we created gave us a guideline for our app’s development. We then iteratively developed our app’s screens. For the wireframe section, my main focus was on customizing the reading experience and interacting with the text. When it came time for the next iteration of low-fidelity prototyping, I focused on the home page and book match and implemented more well-designed features. For this project section, we all worked very cooperatively on all sections of the wireframes and low-fi.
Evaluation
Once our low-fidelity prototype was completed, it was reviewed by other UX designers. With their feedback, my team and I decided how to proceed with development and which elements needed to be corrected, re-designed, or removed. Overall, we determined that we were on the right track, but we needed to correct certain elements that would allow for greater user feedback. This was especially apparent in the survey section of the app. These corrections were then implemented in the High-fidelity prototype.
Hi-fi Prototype
Empathy Map
Iteration
To further develop our Hi-Fi prototype, we created several iterations of different sections to find the most successful designs.
Conclusion and Reflection
This project produced many opportunities for problem-solving, critical thinking, and expanding my understanding of UX design. I believe the overall visual design of Saturn was successful and appropriately handled the seriousness of the subject while maintaining a level of interest and appeal. There are still many areas that I would like to develop further, specifically the connection between dating apps such as Tinder and the event creation process.
This project was another great opportunity to improve my collaborative working skills. As always, working as part of a team comes with its own challenges, but this project allowed me to work through new experiences and learn how to best communicate expectations, boundaries, and other vital aspects of completing a project.
Meet the Team
I worked closely with my peers Hannah Gianino and Ronnie Nuqui for the duration of this project.
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Graphic DesignerUpcoming OU graduate with an BFA in Visual Communications.
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Graphic DesignerUpcoming OU graduate with a BFA in Visual Communications
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Graphic DesignerUpcoming OU graduate with a BFA in Visual Communications