Assessment 3

This assessment follows on from the research I had to complete for the previous assignment. In my research I found apps that tackled problems in a different manner and got a lot of cool and interesting ideas to add and expand to my current concept. Of the apps I researched I found better ways to display information in my plant menu but also mistakes not to make. Some apps had all the information on a plant laid out in long boring text. I saw this as overwhelming information and thought to break up the text in my concept with images and diagrams. I did my interviews with potential users and from there created personas and scenarios. My interview pool was a range of ages and occupations, the only common factor I had was that users at least had an interest in growing their own food or potentially doing so.

My assessment 3 started with storyboards, taking my scenarios I had completed earlier I created 2 story boards shown below.

This was to visualise the journey a user could take while using the app and what problems they could solve with it. It also is a good way to add an emotional journey that a user could take with the app. These were created from just one concept from assessment 2, and would be the concept I turned into my final prototype.

The next step was to start on the prototype, here I could add and change all the ideas I had from my initial concepts. Here is a screenshot of the app in its entirety.

From the wireframes in assessment 2 I condensed pages and information while reformatting others. In this stage the calendar feature went through the most changes, and further changes after user testing.

User testing was an interesting process, simply technology wise trying to get screen recording and audio to both work over the 5 user tests that were completed. Here I got to see if the flow off my app worked, and users could intuitively make their way through the app with no confusion or pain points. This also highlighted any minor prototyping errors in the process. I had users talk aloud as they made their way through the app, commenting on likes, dislikes and anything they found confusing. I then asked for any feedback at the end of their overall experience. We were also asked to do A/B split testing on 3 screens for this project and use those results. This testing process of comparing two potential screens helped be gain a lot of insight. What was my favourite screen or method of displaying information was often disliked. Here are two variants of the calendar feature A on the right and B on the left.

A was the preferred screen and ultimately when I went back to edit my prototype with all the knowledge of user testing, I had to alter the calendar screen to a more condensed version that displayed the month on the one screen instead of scrolling sideways.

Ultimately this was another great experience in app prototyping, looking at this assignment I look forward to increasing my skills in the future.