Written by: Caterina 2022 Cohort
The first semester of Pre-MDM is ending, and I have gained many skills in these short 3 months, not only in software but also in communication skills. Additionally, we can work on actual projects for the first time, which differs from role plays. Our consumers will be more “demanding” in real projects. Thus, we must have strong arguments to persuade them.
This time, the name of our project is Neesh, a sharing-based software for campus LGBTQ2+ in North America.
What impacted you the most in the Neesh project?
The most significant influence Neesh brought to my mind was that every element of the app needed to be based on research, and the founders couldn’t just take a section and put it into the app. At the beginning of the design process, we wanted to continue using Neesh’s design of animals as avatars. We learned from our daily interactions with LGBTQ people that some animals are specifically referred to as a particular group. According to the conversation, we designed 12 animals. However, talking to our clients, they asked, “Do people associate these animals with being LGBTQ?” In other words, we needed more profound research to prove our idea was correct. In the first questionnaire, we found that not every animal was associated with LGBTQ people. In addition, users were curious as to why these animals could be represented as LGBTQ.
If I were designing this questionnaire, I would ask LGBTQ people which animals they think are specifically LGBTQ before creating them. I would include open-ended questions in the survey so that respondents may respond in their terms and provide a clearer picture of their opinions and a wealth of information we might have overlooked. Additionally, starting with questions and moving on to design can cut down on later effort that isn’t essential, which will improve the user experience when the app is being used.
My contribution to the project
As our team’s UI/UX designer, I was mainly responsible for the prototype. As a designer, messy design is the ultimate taboo when designing an interface. The biggest failure of many applications is the chaos. The most common form of this chaos is that the designer will stuff almost all the components of the application into the same interface, no matter what type of software it is. APPs are still primarily designed for small screens, and carrying too many types of content on one interface is highly burdensome for the user. It is essential to set the hierarchy between each function; if the users have a terrible first impression of an app, they will not use it.
I usually treat each screen as a separate container, each container carries different content, and the user gets additional content by switching the interface. When the content is compelling enough, users will unconsciously swipe and switch. A clean and well-organized interface layout ensures a consistent and convenient overall experience. Moreover, elements that are too close together or too small can be challenging for users with stubby fingers to operate. The emergence of giant screen phones is not unrelated to this experience. Hence, in Neesh, a function allows users to select accessories for their avatar, resulting in many elements in that interface. As a designer, I chose to treat all the accessories as a group, put them into a fixed area, and let the user explore more accessories by horizontal scrolling. Our team chose horizontal scrolling for the selection because it allows displaying more items in a fixed space. In our research, we found that horizontal scrolling requires users to pay more attention to the content than vertical scrolling because most vertical scrolling is accompanied by priority, which already helps users to exclude useless information. However, we hope users can actively participate in designing avatars and learning about our accessories and flags. That’s why we chose horizontal scrolling.
However, there is also a shortcoming in our prototype, that is, in the accessories section, although we considered the neatness of the screen, we ignored the audience’s carousel. We didn’t have any carousel to tell the user to get more information by scrolling in this section, and some audience pointed out this problem in the final presentation on Thursday. I have considered this issue while designing a carousel in the “choose your spiritual animal” section. But since the “choose your accessories” interface has already placed those accessories in a fixed area, and the interface is saturated, I’m afraid it will be strange to place the carousel again. The solution I came up with so far is to reduce the number of single pages in the accessories box and place the carousel underneath to solve both the crowded screen and the user guidance problem. The user experience is more critical for our users.
In conclusion, Neesh made me understand that prototyping is based on requirement analysis, and the page layout needs to consider the nature of the requirement and the presentation entirely. For example, when presenting the business requirements, I need to consider the business-based considerations, and the layout needs to set the entrance more prominent. Still, at the same time, I need to consider whether the design is offensive to the users. At the same time, in the next semester of the Pre-MDM group work, I have to make better use of my strengths and improve my presentation skills. My current efforts will make me less stressed in next year’s MDM study.