Takeaways
Overall, this project was an extremely fun and taught us so much about User-Centered Design (UCD). As this class was our introduction to UCD, we learned many new terms and concepts that help with the design process. From personas, to storyboards, to prototyping, our group has learned so much from this class and project. We are excited to utilize our knowledge for future projects and ventures. The biggest lesson we learned was that UCD is a collaborative process, and it involves a lot of brainstorming, research and testing in order to yield the best results.
Project Reflection
COVID-19 has negatively affected all facets of our lives in ways that we thought were unimaginable. Our social lives took the biggest hit due to quarantine and isolation for almost two years. We started this project being fully aware that many other groups would have similar ideas to do something related to social media and meeting new people. However, we were passionate about our idea and tried to emphasize our unique selling proposition (USP) throughout. Not many apps (if any) give users the opportunity to attend events in their local area and meet people. Usually, you need to already know people to be invited to attend functions, which is why afterFive is so special; you can foster the sense of community that you have always wanted, on your own terms.
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Throughout our design process, we found that newly graduated individuals may be a smaller niche than we had anticipated, but we recognize the need for community building with said group as they primarily graduated during the peak of the pandemic. However, we have looked into potentially expanding afterFive in the future (given more time), as we believe that college students could also benefit from this app.
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Furthermore, if we had more time to work on this project, we would have added some extra features of the app to make it even more unique and useful for users. An example of said feature is inspired by the current trending app called "BeReal," where you get a notification once a day at a random time and you need to snap a photo of what you are doing at that exact time. We would use BeReal's notification system, but instead we would notify users when they are within a certain radius of a trendy public event. That way, even if users are not directly using the app at that given moment, they can still be informed of happenings around them. Users have the the options to make public or private events (similar to Facebook), which allows them to have full liberty over what they feel comfortable with doing.
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Through the UCD process, we also learned that users really enjoyed our user interface (UI) and found that it was refreshing to see a colorful, retro theme rather than a monochromatic, minimalist and modern approach. Users believed it added a fun element to the app and was more appealing to the eye. One thing we could do in the future to enhance user experience (UX) is to allow users to customize the colors on the app, so the app can be more personalized and catered to the needs of our users.
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In all, we have learned that the design process is an ongoing system and there constantly new things that we can add or revise within our existing app. We see great potential with afterFive, and there are many ways that we can make this project even better than it already is.
final high-fidelity prototype
Team Reflection
This class was some team members' first Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) course we learned many new terms and concepts that help with the design process. We found that some members worked better on the User Research and storyboarding, while others were stronger in the design portion. Even though we had different strengths, we made sure that everyone's voices were heard and we adhered to our core group values that we stated in the beginning of the quarter. Through this project, we learned how to use each of our strengths and produce a product we are extremely proud of.
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We are also extremely lucky to have been partnered with each other for this project. Each group member had so many amazing ideas and contributions to the team and project overall. We worked efficiently and met weekly outside of class time to form a weekly agenda. Each member was delegated tasks and we worked well together to complete the assignments.
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Even though we all have different aesthetics and styles, we can safely say that each member is extremely pleased with how the final prototype turned out. We used elements from each of our design styles, and our prototype is an accurate representation of all our ideas combined into one final product. We learned so much about the design aspect of user-centered design, but we also learned so much about working well in a team and contributing to the group's success.
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#GoTeamTarnished!