app design with carolina

[app-design-with-carolina]

uni : a real cunyfirst app

uni : a real cunyfirst app designed by carolina walters

[app-design-with-carolina]

interviews

damian

How do you feel about the cunyfirst website?

1.     I hate it. Its outdated, its slow and laggy. There’s a bunch of white space that does nothing, the banner is long but does nothing. It looks like it should be on a phone. I don’t like the colors they make me sad.

  Please tell me more about how it looks like it should be on a phone?

1.     Goes hand in hand with the white space comment. Everything is pushed to the left. This implies that the white space comes from the screen being larger. You could condense this entire page into a third of its size.

 What do you do most frequently on cunyfirst?

1.     Praying for financial aid- looking for classes and refreshing that whole registration page to make sure I can get the classes I want. Second is seeing if I got any financial aid. I don’t go on cunyfirst more than once for my schedule because I just take a screenshot of it.

 If cunyfirst were to have an app, what would you want to do on there?

1.     Look at my classes and schedule, maybe a campus map for new people- I want everything I can do on the website on the app. Maybe make payments is important, maybe a section where you can contact your advisor because registering goes hand in hand with meeting with your advisor.

 chris

How do you feel about the cunyfirst website?

2. I think overall it has a good design, but from what I recall there were certain things that were tedious to get there.  Like a Russian doll situation. Like logging into cunyfirst and then having to log into the library for your school

 What do you do most frequently on cunyfirst?

2. Reviewing my transcripts- like grades.

 Would you have appreciated if it had been an app?

2. Yeah, that would have been nice. I think a native app where they could have made it easy to move through would have been helpful

 If cunyfirst were to have an app, what would you want to do on there?

2. Be able to add and drop courses, that would be the biggest thing.

[app-design-with-carolina]

app style guide

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app user flows

[app-design-with-carolina]

scenarios and tasks for cunyfirst app

you are on your way to class, but forget where your class is held!

using your mobile phone, open the cunyfirst app and see your schedule. fin the class in your daily schedule and tap on the room number to open a campus map that has the room marked.

you are not feeling well berfore class and need to email the professor to let them know.

using your mobile phone, open the cunyfirst app and see your schedule. tap on the name of your professor to open the email overlay and hit send a message to navigate out of the cunyfirst app and into your email app to send the message.

you have been to your advisor and are ready to register for classes. 

using your mobile phone, open the cunyfirst app and hit the magnifying glass tab on the tab bar at the bottom. type the name of a class you need to register for in the search bar. select one of the sections in the search results and hit enroll.

the semester is finally over and you need to see your grades.

open the cunyfirst app and navigate from schedule to grades by using the tab  bar at the bottom of the screen. select the current semester to see the grades you just earned. 

[app-design-with-carolina]

first draft of lofi cunyfirst app design

[app-design-with-carolina]

ux interview 1: my mom

please introduce yourself. I am Lina Rodriguez

what does your average day look like? a tot of work. some stress in the morning to reach the office on time, and also leaving the office making sure that i fulfill all my duties.

what about the weekend? yes. mostly on saturdays i have a very busy agenda with a lot of things to do and i like to do some exercise. to walk basically because as of the pandemic i am not going to the gym so mostly my routine for exercise is walking. 

what do you like to do for fun? i like cooking and trying new recipes especially dishes from other cultures. How people could prepare ingredients in different ways. and i like also to read and i also like to see documentaries. i like that type of entertainment. sometimes i think i am a news junky, but i am trying to control that.

how do you get around your neighborhood? mostly walking. i try to walk but since i have two bus stops that are not far from home i am pretty interested in using public transportation to move around because I don’t have a car. so walking for me is really important.

could anything make your walking easier? no, i don’t think so. i think to walk you need the desire to do it.  not only for fun but also to make your body move and do some type of exercise that is not going to the gym and lifting something. so i think to me walking makes me more active and i feel much better after i walk at least half an hour during the day.

could you describe a frustrating experience you had getting somewhere? well one is when there is a delay on the bus, for instance. or you try to  reach the ferry boat on time and when you reach the ferry terminal, the ferry boat is gone. so most of the time you have to wait half an hour. 

which modes of transportation serve you best and why? i like buses. they are better because to me with the buses you can see around the neighborhood and look around the cities the streets, the intersections. you could locate where you are in terms of the neighborhood, in terms of the businesses around and in terms of what you need to do. sometimes i think having access to a cab is also important, especially during the night, which looks a little frustrating on staten island. 

are there sidewalks in your neighborhood? some blocks, most of the blocks, hey have it but there are a few blocks that they do not and i have to walk in the streets, which i do not feel comfortable with but there is no other option.

how would you describe the condition of the sidewalks? generally speaking they look ok but there are some areas because of trees that the sidewalks are a little leveled up of the street level and they may have a little step that usually people may not see unless you really pay attention, really using your eyes to walk. but if you get any distraction you might end up on the ground. and also there are areas there might be signs that are not fully removed and if you don’t see them you might tumble on them and end up on the ground.

let’s talk about your relationship with technology. what devices do you use? obviously the computer at the office  because i spend more hours there. out of the office, obviously it’s my cell phone.

you have a smartphone? yes.

what do you do on it? i have a whatsapp account with my relatives and some friends which i check. i also use it to check my email and also text messages from family members. sometimes some businesses.

describe a frustrating experience you had on an app. yes. wit the mta app when i am typing the bus number, it doesn’t  show up if i am not clicking the capital letters or giving the space because they have it written in a specific format that it is frustrating because  it does not show up in the lineup for all the buses that they have and i think that makes me lose time and my patience too. it should be that if i type “sbs79″ it should show up but it does not if i don’t put the space between the sbs and the 79.

thank you for your time! ...

[app-design-with-carolina]

interview questions

first drafft:

< please introduce yourself.

< what does your average day look like?

<what do you like to do for fun?

< how do you typically get there?

< how do you get around your neighborhood?

<could anything make that easier?

< please describe a frustrating experience you had trying to get somewhere.

< which modes of transportation serve you best and why?

<are there sidewalks in your neighborhood?

< how would you describe the condition of theses sidewalks?

<let’s talk about your relationship with technology. what devices do you use? 

<what do you do on them?

[app-design-with-carolina]

a response to How To Think Differently About Doing Good As a Creative Person

This article was about how to avoid the creative savior complex, one based on the white savior complex. Here, similarly the creative person is looking down on those they claim to help and actually not helping them. Admittedly, as a budding creative this concern had not yet arose, but that is because I do not do much activist work. I appreciate the timing of this article in my life though, because this semester both my classes have asked me to make work of this nature. The example at the end is really great. as a minority who wants to go into tech, the idea of a site that talks about the inclusivity of different companies excited me. I had high hopes for their project because they themselves were black and working in tech so they were a part of the community they were trying to help. The complexity of the issue was obvious and it is unfortunate that the project had to end but very cool they recognized they were not prepared and put the money toward directly helping their community.

[app-design-with-carolina]

mood board a

[app-design-with-carolina]

an app not to trip over

last week when my mother tripped on a poorly cut sign post, I could not find where to report this unsafe sidewalk to the city. This is a great opportunity for a new app that allows citizens to alert the city and each other about sidewalk conditions. an app would be convenient because it more accurately and allows users to see any reported sidewalks nearby.  A user would report the condition with an image and a short description, the city would be alerted, and once they repair it the city can update the alert to resolved.  This would be really great for both parties because people could avoid injury and the city could  avoid being sued.