My role: Lead UX researcher, UX designer, and UI designer
Duration: February 23-March 2, 2021
Tools: XD, Sketch, Google Suite, Zoom, Coolers Color Guide, Adobe Color Palette Generator, UI Accessibility Checker
Deliverables: Sketches, user interviews, usability testing, highfidelty prototype
Soft skills enhanced: Determination, perseverance, flexibility, willingness to learn, diligence, self-awareness, self-reflection
Gramcity is a photo editing app that helps users prepare photos before posting them to Instagram or other social media. Gramcity to help users find locations to take pictures of interesting architecture, artwork, landmarks, etc. Constraints/guidelines included adding a feature to the pre-existing app, finding actual locations, and creating a community that helps users find and share photos.
Much research was already completed by the company.
2 personas existed, which included:
An overview of the experience flow for the Stephanie’s persona.
I conducted a heuristic analysis in order to understand existing products and existing user interactions.
Similar to Gramcity in it’s location services, AllTrails is an app to find nearby spots for outdoor sports like hiking and mountain biking. Users are able to view trails on a map or pick out spots to visit that are recommended or based on category or rating. AllTrails uses your location information, or you can plug in an area that you will be visiting in advance.
LiGoogle Maps app offers maps and directions but also, and similarly to Gramcity, offers recommendations. Google Maps only offers recommendations of nearby activities, restaurants, places to stay, and more.
Yelp is like Gramcity in that it offers reviews, written by the public. However, their reviews are on restaurants and local businesses. It also uses your location to help offer suggestions and show top rated highlights.
Because Gramcity would be used for people traveling, it has similar users and features to Gramcity. Along with many other features, Tripadvisor helps users create itineraries for travel. There is a large community of reviewers offering advice and ratings of the best travel plans.
I decided that my 8th screen was the best, as it incorporated a few of the better ideas into one screen.
For my prototype storyboard, I decided to both pare down and expand upon my three-panel storyboard. I focused a bit more on the heuristic of minimal and aesthetically clean screens, while removing some of the buttons and filters. Those could be added in a future version and were not part of a MVP. Additionally, I expanded upon the end to end experience and the users’ need to create an itinerary.
For my usability testing, I recruited five users via the online Slack networking groups. These users self-reported that they enjoy social media and post photos regularly. Each participant’s test results helped me see aspects of the prototype that worked well, along with opportunities for improvement. I found conducting interviews easy because I now have a lot more experience giving usability tests, as well as participating in my classmates’ tests and interviews.
A few helpful patterns emerged during testing. On a positive note, many people found the flow familiar and consistent with other apps. The magnifying glass search icon was helpful to my testers. However, the pushpin icon (which was supposed to be suggestive of pinning spots to a paper map) was too unfamiliar to users. Instead of this, a double tap on the image or location card would mimic instagram and also allow users to save and favorite locations for their itinerary. The verbiage on “Photo Ops” and “Top Ops” seemed unclear to a few of the testers.
Overall, I found the design sprint process quite enjoyable. I feel like time-boxing my work and giving myself sharp deadlines really helped spur my creativity. I would really love to try this process with a team of people.
Throughout the project, I learned how a system of organization, keeping detailed notes and reflections really helped me to jump right back into the next day’s work. I also learned that it’s a process of iterations and changes, which funnel down to the final product.
For my next steps, I would iterate on my usability test findings. This includes changing the push pin style buttons to hearts. I would also integrate other features of instagram such as changing the verbiage to “Explore” so as to clarify steps for the user.
I spent a few hours tightening up the UI and iterating on the user feedback. I deleted the push pin icons and added the original heart idea.
