User-Friendly community apps, not only safety, it's lifestyle!
In the realm of the app, a user-friendly and minimalistic design can make all the difference. Imagine an app that not only keeps you...
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Project Overview
Coromandel is a town in New Zealand with a large elderly population. The Coromandel community app is designed to provide residents peace of mind by fostering a connected and supportive neighborhood. Users can view the general location status of their neighbors, allowing for easy messaging and calls. Also, users can request to track the live location of specific neighbors, providing an extra layer of safety for those who may require additional support.
Challenges
1. Create a minimalistic design as most of the users are not technology savvy.
2. Adding features that benefit the users.
3. Users priority to use the app for emergency responses.
4. Balancing the need for community safety with individual privacy rights.
Community's Safety Net
Empathize
1: Who exactly are the users?
The residents in Coromandel, and the family members of residents that are outside the town.
2: What do users say about their experiences
with the product or a similar product?
Jessica, one the of residents’ daughters, wanted to know if her home-alone father was okay when she could not reach her father when calling him.
3: What do users think about their experiences?
John, Jessica's father, needs help to carry heavy items, but he is not sure who to ask as he is also not sure who is free to help him.
4: What do users do before, during, and after their experiences?
John can let Jessica track his live location. Also, he can share some of his daily activities on his moments, like social media. On the other end, Jessica can see John’s location and his daily life throughout the app.
5: What do users feel about their experiences?
Jessica will feel safer, she can track his father’s location even if she is miles away from him. She can even contact John’s neighbor to ask for help if John doesn’t pick up her phone call.
User Persona
John, 65
Education: Primary School
Location: Coromandel, NZ
Family: Married, 1 Child
Occupation: Retired Farmer
Goals:
Need an clean app and need to find out which neighbors nearby to call for help when needed.
Frustrations:
Not used to the technologies. Have to deal with lots of messy app. Feel helpless when he got no option to ask for helps.
“When I need to carry the pot, I cant! I need someone to help but I don't have their contacts..."
As a elderly, I want to have neighbors contact so that I can ask for their help when I needed.
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Jessica, 32
Education: Degree
Location: Katikati, NZ
Family: Married, 2 Child
Occupation: Admin
Goals:
To track his father live location. Getting contact of his neighbors so that she can ask for neighbors help if there’s anything happens.
Frustrations:
Always worrying if there’s anything happen to her father when cannot reach him and she had no choice but drive 2 hours back to check.
“I really worried about my father when he is not answering my phone call!"
As a daughter of an elderly, I want to track my father location and able to contact neighbors so that I don’t need to worry about my father.
Alex, 25
Education: Degree
Location: Coromandel, NZ
Family: Single
Occupation: Freelancer
Goals:
Willing to help neighbors to ensure they are home safely because he treat everyone in this town as his family.
Frustrations:
He cannot keep hanging around the neighborhood because he needs to work from home.
“I grow up here, this community and neighborhood are family to me, so I hope everyone around me is fine.”
As a local who grew up here, I want to share my contact to neighbors so that when someone needed help can contact me!
Define Process
John, 65
John is a retired farmer who needs an app that can have the contacts of his nearby neighbors because he can ask for their help when John need it.
Jessica, 32
Jessica is John’s daughter who needs an app to track her father and have contact of his neighbors because she wants to know that her father is fine in his home when he is not picking up phone calls.
Multi-feature
By offering multiple features like location status, phone calls, messages, and moments, we want to make the app so valueable that users will use it daily to enhance their lives.
Safe & Secure
With the live tracking location and moments feature, users can have a piece of mind and have more connection with their home-alone parents.
Design
Users can enjoy a simple and minimalistic user interface. With less content and fewer buttons on a page, users can complete task with minimum effort and navigate through the app intuitively.
Connecting
By the list of neighbors nearby, users can call and messages them, and see their moments. Which the neighborhood will have a stronger bonds, it made them a stronger and safer community.
Ideating, How Might We?
01.
How might we make the app intuitive and easy to use for people of all ages?
02.
How might we design an app that respects user privacy and security?
03.
How might we foster deeper connections between neighbors using technology?
04.
How might we verify the identities of users to enchance trust?
05.
How might we keep users engaged with the app on a regular basis?
Ideating, Rapid Sketching
I have done some early rapid sketching "Crazy Eight" on A4 papers to create some wireframe ideas, using simple elements like squares, lines, and circles.
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Prototype Solutions
I have produced an early concept, ideas, and models of the solution so we can see how it will look and function for users.
Site Map
I have created a sitemap for the app, as early ideas on what to add to it. After this, I found out that I forgot the most important part of the app, which is the location feature.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
Below shows the low-fidelity prototype that I created with Figma. I use only greyscale and simple shapes of squares, circles, lines, and icons to come out with the basic interactive models.
High-Fidelity Prototype
I have transformed the low-fidelity prototype into a high-fidelity prototype. I added colors, real content, images, and icons to the prototype. Now the prototype looks more like a final product. After that, I added the interactions on each page, becoming real functionality mockups.
Usability Study: Research Plan
Unmoderated usability studies have been conducted. The research goal is to determine if users can complete core tasks within the prototype of the Coromandel app, and if it is difficult to use. By discovering the research goal, I have come up with some research questions.
1. How long does it takes a user to check their neighbors' location and contacts?
2. Is there any part of the user flow that users get stuck?
3. What features are they expected that should have included in the app?
4. Does the design fit in every different device and screen size?
Key Performance Indicators
I have used 3 types of KPI to measure the effectiveness of the study. It is very important because it measures progress toward an end goal.
Time on task
Time on task measures how long it takes the users to complete a task.
Conversion rate
It measure the percentage of users who completed a task.
System Usability Scale
A questionnaire to ask participants their opinions about the product.
Unmoderated Studies
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The methodology for this study is unmoderated usability studies. Each participant will complete the study in their home.
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Date: The session will take place in August.
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Duration: Each session will last 5 to 10 minutes.
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Compensation: $50 PakNSave gift card for participating in the study.
Unmoderated Studies: Script
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A list of prompts appears during the usability study.
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Prompt 1: Go to the hamburger icon on the top left to open the navigation bar.
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Prompt 2: Look for the Neighbors Nearby button
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Prompt 3: See a list of neighbors nearby and their location status. (Home or away).
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Prompt 4: From the home page, edit and put your favorite shortcuts and save.
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Prompt 5: How did you feel about this app overall? What did you like and dislike about it?
After the unmoderated usability study
The unmoderated usability studies have come out with a lot of reviews and feedback to refine my design. Finally, it has a range of positive responses and statements.
I think that I
would use this
app frequently.
I feel confident using the app.
I love those features in the app.
The showcase of final outcome
1. Login Page
1a. Login typing Page
16. Inbox
1. Login Page
1/17
Last But Not Least
Thank you very much for reading my case study.
Again, this project is only for my course assignment. All the content in this case study is my imagination, online research, and my knowledge of UX design. I have selected this prompt provided by the course, and I have started doing it all on my own.
I cannot wait to start building a real project, for real users and learning more UX skills from my future seniors and colleagues.
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