Project description:
BuddyFinder - is a concept of a native mobile App designed to help parents to find new buddies for their kids.
v1 of the App was created in a timeframe of 1 week.
Tools:
Sketching, Pop, InVision
Problem:
Very often if you just moved to a new city or country it's pretty hard to find friends for your child to play with, especially if you're not familiar with the area, or a person with a different cultural background.
Why it’s interesting:
Organizational research didn't show any existing Apps that would help parents to find new friends for their kids, so there is a potential business opportunity.
My role:
This particular project was focused on a User Research part of a UX Design process. I had to listen carefully to my user's story and reveal any pain points that can be fixed by mobile App. I analyzed the User Data and came up with a solution in a form of a clickable prototype of a native mobile App (BuddyFinder).
Skills:
My design process:
Research:
Since the primary task of this project was to find pain points of my user I started my process from conversation. I asked open-ended questions and listened to the answers trying to identify goals, problems and desires that my user has.I’ve conducted a number of user interviews to find the real problem that was bothering my interviewee. I needed to go through at least 3 interviews with the same person, to iterate and elaborate the right direction to research.To see the problem clearly I made an affinity diagram based on my interviewee’s answers and composed a persona.
Persona
Affinity Diagram
I performed a quick Domain Research with a hope to find any possible competitors so I could make competitor comparative analysis. Domain Research didn't give any direct results, which means that the App should be created from scratch.
Plan:
I built User Journey Map and a Storyboard to see how the App will be used in context of persona’s life.
Storyboard: the story starts here
Storyboard: where's everyone?
Storyboard: let's go to play!
User Journey Map
Decision Tree imitates the thinking process of my persona Anahita.
Decision Tree
User thinking process naturally transforms into app flow
Design:
The final process was to sketch my ideas, filter out those that didn’t work well and create first prototype in Pop.
After prototype was finished I presented my work to my classmates.
Results: the final piece is a clickable prototype of a mobile App that will help parents to find other parents in the neighbourhood, message them or send an invitation to go somewhere together.
Test: TBD
Iterate: TBD
Next steps:
- Do more user interviews
- Do deep domain research
- Conduct usability tests
Conclusions:
If/How/Why I resolved the problem: The problem was resolved to some extent, yet still needs further investigation and iteration. The parent was given opportunity to express his/her willingness to meet other parents in his/her neighbourhood but there’s no guarantee other parents will be interested to accept invitation, answer message or even download the App.
The most surprising moment: I didn’t find any competitor Apps to explore their weak and strong sides. So it bothers me why there’s no competitors? It might be strong security concern for parents to meet strangers on the playground.
The most important things I learned:
- User Interviews are probably the most! important part of the project
- It’s super hard to feel and “hear” what the user really needs
- Privacy and confidentiality is a strict concern when working with users’ personal information
- You need to tame your desire to do what you want instead of doing what your user needs