Written by: Hairong Long
Project summary
Team Unicorn has completed the whole registration process for Neesh project, including a new design of the avatar system, prototype, and user test. This marks the end of a challenging but successful task for us.
In these three months, our team finished the objective of this project which was to design a new avatar system that expands the customizability during registration. This purpose was to improve the avatar system with a more colourful and playful process of avatar customization.
Apart from this, our team has finalized the team charter, project charter, test plan and report, and project proposal. The process of writing helps us learn to write formally and state our thoughts clearly.
In my experience, Neesh project gave me a whole picture of the iteration of an application, team management, and effective writing.
The impressive work and lessons learned.
On the one hand, the avatar system has been completed successfully. We planned to add five more different animals, ten more accessories, and a basic prototype design in five weeks. Now we have twelve other animals, forty different pride flags, thirty different accessories provided in the avatar system, and a whole registration process.
The design part was all based on online research; some of the articles had proven that spiritual animals such as frogs and dragons represent asexual; some of the reports revealed that some animals are trending in the LGBTQ2+ group. Our team collected those data and used them as basic ideas for the animals we would draw. After the survey, the data showed that all the animals had avoided offensive meanings to the users.
Then, our team moved to the drawing part. I contributed twelve animals and made them suit Neesh’s style. It was crucial to use white for the silhouette and black for their mouths.
I also designed the style of the slides for the team presentation and the layout for the project proposal. To make the visual style looks coordinated, based on research, I used a rainbow colour to represent the theme of LGBTQ2+. The colour pattern I used was created by mourning an LGBTQ2+ group member who is a font designer.
On the other hand, during my work in technical writing, I learned how to edit text. To illustrate, when I wrote the project proposal summary for the first time, I tended to follow the group charter’s style, which is conversational and diffuse. It took a while to understand, and hard to finalize the general statement. To design the final project proposal in a formal way, I searched several references and analyzed what worked and why. I realized it is essential to state the problem in the first sentence and to find the research to prove it. After summarizing the idea and rewriting those parts, concreting the concept of the project itself and making the proposal more readable and persuasive.
After that, we got feedback and revision from our clients. Listening to the advice of eloquent clients is a piece of music to ears. I cleared the mist and started to gain an understanding of the subtleties and nuances. For example, on my part, I was writing a persona named “Noah,” who is a bisexual person; apart from the mental illness they have suffered, clients suggested recognizing themselves as the LGBTQ2+ group or not is also an essential pain point to him.
Overall, whether it is on design or writing, rather than thinking only from our own’s perspective, it is vital to take references from online research or ask for suggestions from clients or users.
Recommendations and suggestions
The design of our avatar system was an example of a successfully planned and executed project for Neesh. However, I have recommendations and suggestions for our team and myself.
Time management is often essential, especially in the designing part. To demonstrate, I found it challenging to follow the strict deadline. Although the design should be as simple as possible when I drew the animals, it still took one or two hours to complete one picture. Considering the tight deadline, I had to create it without further thinking. Conversely, if I could have shortened the process of researching and planning, it would release time from the stressed schedule.
Teamwork is vital, but sometimes cooperation becomes a problem. Since our team members are from different backgrounds and each has unique skills, quantifying everyone’s work became a problem. Furthermore, our working process is like a chain; if someone were to miss his or her part of the work, the rest of the team would be unable to move on to the next step. When faced with these two problems, the team leader chose someone else to complete the task, but the time was consumed, and we struggled to submit the weekly update. Alternatively, if I could control my temper in those weeks and solved the conflict privately, it could have been more peaceful. Additionally, when we selected our part of the work, it would be an adequate solution if we could understand team members’ backgrounds specifically and allocate the job based on everyone’s interests.
After finishing the design part, writing the questionnaire was also challenging for everyone. Since we needed to gain experience writing relevant questions and all of us were unfamiliar with data analysis, our team found it challenging to continue the process. Rather than relying on our own experiences, our team or I turned to seeking a reliable person or finding valuable references online.
In summary, our team Unicorn successfully completed the prototype. I have realized how to improve my time management, teamwork, and new skills. Briefly, all of us did fantastic work.