PROJECT VELA (2017-18)
The Weather Forecasts, Reports and Statistics Mobile App for Water Sports
Introduction
PROJECT VELA is a mobile application prototype developed within the second part of the CareerFoundry Certified UX Designer Program: UX Immersion.
Days on the water are meant to be everything but stressful. To avoid these, it’s good practice to check the conditions of the wind, waves, and weather near the body of water where we will be having fun. This can help us avoid dangerous situations and better prepare for a day of sailing, diving, or surfing.
Work on the Project
In this project, I worked alone under the guidance of two professional UX designer: one as a tutor and the other as a mentor.
My role was to develop a functional prototype from scratch for testing purposes through the main stages of a UX project, such as researching, user interviews, personas creation, wireframing and prototyping or even conducting moderated usability tests. This time in a pretty more profound way, compared to the previous project.
Making use of the best and most useful tools which currently UX design provides, one of my primary goals was to keep a robust user-centered design all the project along, which led being in constant contact with the users from the very beginning.
Design Challenge
Weather apps on the market that water sport loving people use, rarely provide the users with all the features that they require. Users have to use more than one app to obtain all the information they need, and it's easy to see that such applications lack a user-centered design, both IA- and usability-wise. Not to mention how difficult and unintuitive to use these apps are for beginners or non-experienced users.
In this project, I picked apart the experience of preparing an optimal session in the water and understanding what sportspeople expect. This mobile app has to be an accurate and reliable source of information, accessible for both beginners and experienced users.
The application has to be to be “fast, simple, and intuitive”:
I designed it for specific circumstances: This application is meant to be used before the user gets into the water. It is meant to be used for a quick 2-3 minute session to check the weather just a few days before (or on the day of) heading out to the water.
Through the app I to encourage users to be prepared for a day on the water, with both good or bad weather, and to get into the habit of making well-informed and safe decisions.
I think it has to be made extremely easy for users to glance at all the vital information they need, and when necessary, help them understand what they are viewing.
Also, those were the basic requirements the app to have:
An onboarding page (a screen or screens that show the user the basics of getting started).
A way to sign up, including regular and social login, and login that allows users to input and save their personal information.
A profile area where users can access their information and define preferences.
A menu that allows users to navigate the application.
A display of wind conditions in real-time.
A display of wave conditions in real-time.
A display of weather conditions in real-time.
A display of algae reports in real-time.
Recommendations that can help users stay safe.
Workflow
1. Surveys & Interviews.
2. User Research Analysis.
3. User Personas.
4. User Journeys Maps.
5. User Flows and Task Analyses.
6. Mobile-First Design.
7. Content Auditing.
8. Sitemap.
9. Refining Sitemap & Card Sorting.
10. Navigation for Mobile & Desktop.
11. Low-Fidelity Prototyping.
12. Rapid Prototyping.
13. Mid-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototyping.
14. High-Fidelity Wireframes & Clickable Prototypes.
15. Usability Test Plan and Script
16. Conducting Usability Tests
17. Usability Test Results Analysis
18. Reporting Findings & Making Recommendations
19. Preference Testing
Refining the Design
After developing, testing and improving the prototype, it came the turn of visual design. The result is this Design Language System, which ultimately was enhanced to users with special needs.
Conclusion
Among all the knowledge, challenges, pain points and conclusions I got from each step, I’d like to highlight the next ones:
1. As an engineer, I noticed how important is keeping the user in the centre of the design. The software is meant to be used by persons, and any innovation, goal or idea which isn’t focused on them leads the project to failure. Solid user research previous to implementation ensures a development with the goals headed in the right direction. User interviews, journey maps, user personas, user flows, etc. are valuable tools and methods which help to keep the project on the right track.
2. Start wireframing and prototyping orderly from a very low level, with paper and pencil, until a high level. It’s vital to design simply in a first term since it helps you to think in a high level. Doing it so gets you a solid basis for later designs when you have to polish and start thinking of small details.
3. Low-fidelity prototyping is a quick and cheap way to start as soon as possible with usability testings. It allows to modify or improve designs in a fast form.
4. Starting usability test as soon as possible on early stages of the project ensures you a solid product based on indeed user needs. Low- and mid-fidelity wireframing is a good help in this way. It’s essential counting on the final user from the beginning of the project.
5. Keep valuable and consolidated knowledge in mind while designing (patterns, heuristics, frameworks, etc). It helps you to rely on solid concepts which are user-centered and help you avoiding mental models. They prevent you to reinvent the wheel.
