Interaction Design & Evaluation Process - IDM21
Critical Reflection
Yashwanth Kotha, 20838335
[email protected]
Introduction:
This report will provide a critical review of my design process for IDM 21 –
Assignment-1 (Housemate App) Interaction Design Project. It reflects on
how my design thinking process analysed the problem I was trying to
solve and also analyse the tools and methods used along the way. The
Nielsen Group’s design-thinking method was adopted from the outset of
this project so that a user-centred approach was taken from beginning to
end.
Due to time constraints and limited access to volunteers during the Covid
time, I decided to focus solely on the user experience of the app. First, I
tried to empathize with my potential users and understand what they
would do in a real-life scenario where they are living with multiple people
in the same house in a co-living space.
I was able to imagine three unique scenarios:
1. How is the user confronting a housemate without feeling shy or
impolite while trying to ask for help around the house?
2. How were the bills and expenses being tracked around the house
including, utility bills and others?
3. Who is responsible for keeping the house clean around them and
how the chores delegated?
Next, I framed a questionnaire and conduct a small survey of 10 people
who were staying in shared accommodation. They were very happy to
comply and finish my survey. The outcoming results were really helpful in
confirming some of my previous assumptions about co-living and also
made me aware of new information that could help me better understand
the needs of my potential users.
I created a user persona based on all the answers I received from my
survey and was able to culminate all the needs and pain points into a
single user’s requirement. The resulting output helped me identify which
interface elements will be better suited for this super-user. The major
needs were:
1. Communicate to all the roommates without the chance of being
ignored.
2. Share the house responsibilities among all the housemates.
3. Feel comfortable in his own house, around his housemates.
Pain Points of the user:
1. Having to continuously remind housemates when rent is due.
2. Track and split expenses among the housemates.
3. Hates repeating himself every time for task around the house to be
done.
4. The user comes off like a nag to other house members.
Next, I conducted an open card sorting to identify and group the
requirements with the right solutions. This worked effectively and helped
me create a user flow to understand how I would need to design the app
to provide a good user experience. To not show any bias, I asked a
volunteer from my class to rearrange the cards and see what they would
come up with. The results were pretty similar and that boosted my
confidence to take the further step and start thinking about task scenarios
and how the sorted structure I created for the user flow would fit in. The
aim was to develop a clear brief for the design of the application.
I designed an empathy map to capture and present key insights into
customer interactions with the application and it helped me build a visual
understanding of how the user interface should be designed and
represented. First, I split the user’s emotions and actions into four
categories:
1. What does the user see?
2. What does the user do?
3. What does the user think & feel?
4. What does the user Say?
This way I was able to separate the user’s actions, motivations and
emotions to ideally isolate the user’s pain points and what does the user
gain from going through all the hoops and hurdles.
The pain points focussed on:
1. Lack of communication
2. Not sharing house responsibilities
3. Not paying rent and other bills on time
4. Tracking and splitting expenses among the housemates
5. Coming off too strong by showing authority when taking care of the
house.
Visual References:
After wireframing I look for visual references that help me to deliver an app with an effective
impression on the user.
I used a flat green as bold primary colour and apple black for flat secondary colour with
white background. Green is a very down-to-earth colour. It is a balancing and harmonizing
effect, and is very stable.
And for typography, I used “Inter” font for both primary and secondary text along with the
logo title. I used this font specifically because tt's extremely breathable and non-fatiguing
while still looking fantastic. It’s a prototypical neo-grotesque and is good for screen legibility
in small screen sizes like mobile phones and tablets.
Prototype:
I worked on a low fidelity prototype based on the user flow I created and the results of the
card sorting task. I used Whimsical platform for this and then reiterated the low-fi mock-ups
in Figma to generate a functional prototype. I then asked a couple of volunteers from my
class to test the low fidelity prototype with Nielsen's heuristics. This was quite revealing as
the participants were very helpful in dissecting my ideas and the designs that I created to
measure the usability and the elements of the app.
1. The system was able to keep users informed about what is going on through
appropriate feedback. The results also state that the system spoke the user’s language
with words and concepts familiar to the user.
2. The system ‘states’ I used to exit certain action scenarios were confusing to the tester
and would prefer a consistent order for their actions.
3. Due to limited feature sets in the applications, I preferred making the application
prone to fewer errors by using forced acknowledgement actions by the user.
Whenever the user wants to act, e.g., Add a new housemate, Add a new task, or add a
new bill receipt, instead of making the user click proceed or complete, I included a
swipe to confirm the action to remind the user about the action that’s being
performed. This will help the user perform more real-time actions based on need
rather than committing an error.
4. The information provided on the app is iterated to train the user for adaptability and
expands on training the users to follow a system that will save time and effort for
them.
5. The efficiency of the app’s design makes it accessible to all users without any lack of
flexibility or adaptability.
6. Overall the design is aesthetically minimal and clean. This retains the user’s attention.
makes it simple and efficient to use.
7. Help and documentation were provided through the profile page, along with settings,
support and logout features.
The resulting high fidelity mock-ups after heuristic evaluation far exceed the earlier test
results and are aesthetically beautiful and at the same time, the update functionality provided
through the interface provides a seamless experience to the user.
Few mistakes along the way:
As I was focussing more on the user experience, I stopped thinking beyond the scope of the
application that I initially set for myself. When the project was coming to an end, I realized
there are a lot more things I could have implemented in this app, like finding a roommate,
using the app to take notes for groceries, keeping emergency contact data, etc.
But as far as the initial scope is considered, the assumptions and requirements have been met
and after a couple of reviews by my class colleagues, the app now successfully delivers the
solutions for all the pain points that were considered by the user persona.
