Sephira Iona

20 year old student at AHO. This is my journey in design. About ○ Projects ○ Archive

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Testing the prototype

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AHO Works exhibition

Here I got pictures of some children trying my project. Children was my original user group after all. The engagement of the children was what I hoped for - enthusiastic and eager to find all the animals, and they wanted to find ALL the animals. An interesting observation for my part.

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Curious Exhibitions Results

How the final product ended up:

The size of the posters made such a difference. It gave a stronger feel of looking through a jungle and walking through one too.

I made a steadier version of the magnifiying glass. I didn’t use a real magnifyier for two reasons - they were hard to find without their own light, and they were too exspensive to simply buy and then break apart a second later. In another world I would like to try it with one though as I also think it would make a cool effect.

Had I had more time I would have liked to make a stand for the sign too.

Video showing how it can be used:

Users trying my project:

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The Web and the City - Week 4 (Result: “SiO-Events”)

From the overall positive feedback we got in week 3 we used week 4 to finalise and improve details and interactions in our event app. We took all the feedback we got and discussed, drew out and tested new solutions to possible problems.

This lead us to the final app “SiO-Events”!

See the finished website for SiO-Events here. (includes video)

Reflections on the project:

I think I found this project the most challenging this semester. I’ve never made an app to this extent before and just that in itself was a learning filled experience. I also think this is the project where I’ve felt most motivated and unmotivated. It almost felt like after every week our decisions were never good enough, there was always something wrong or missing or just not what the teacher had hoped for, and at the time that was exasperating. However, looking back at it now - with wiser eyes - I’m able to understand the teachers perspective, agree on it, and see how one can get so caught up in one part of the project and completely forget another. I want to remember this for future reference, to just take a step back and look at the project as whole - does it even work? Would I even use (insert future project) myself?

Another crucial thing I’ve learned throughout this project is that I need to be stronger in my opinions. I often want to please everyone in my group, but that isn't always the best, when it just gets us stuck in one spot. What I think ended up happening in the beginning of our project is that we got caught up in idea after idea, and we kind of dwelled there for too long. It misguided us somehow and none of us took the lead in saying “no this won't actually work” as early as we should have. 

Despite all that, I think our group work was challenging at some points, but we had an overall good workflow and worked better and better as a group throughout the weeks. I am aware that there are a lot of things that could still be improved in our app. I am also very glad that we came back to solving the “events app” idea and actually succeeded in finding a possible solution. I think its important to not jump from one idea to another immediately just because you get stuck, so I am very proud of my group in that aspect that we went back and solved it! I also want to thank my group for the work we did together and also for keeping up with me when I got too tired to focus! Thank you for a great project :D

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The Web and the City - Week 3

In the beginning of the week we sat down and discussed the feedback from the presentation. We realised we were all a bit confused the past week and therefore went back to what we decided earlier on: focusing back on events and new students i Oslo. We made two personas to help guide us with the user group we wanted. And then we started making a better version of the randomised event app. We tried simplifying it and thinking of ways to make it less extreme and more trustworthy. 

Click here to see the presentation.

Early on in the week we also got to interview the leader of the welfare council, Maya Sol Sørgård, who works close with SiO (Studentsamskipnaden i Oslo) and is very engaged in creating a better student environment. We learned a lot from her and the research we collected helped create a clearer understanding of what direction we should take our project. 

Here is also where we decided that the app should be integrated into the already existing SiO app. This makes our feature in the app seem more trustworthy and reliable as every student is known with SiO.

Click here to see prototype 1.

Click here to see prototype 2.

The final prototype for week 3 (go to website to see it work):

The new flowchart:

Feedback and reflections:

This final version was much more “believable”.

Integrating it in the SiO app makes it a lot more trustworthy and its something students are known with already. Another side to it though is - how many people are actually “hanging out” in the SiO app?

Despite the often problematic parts about adding a feature to an already existing app, the teachers thought the solution worked.

Positive that we focused on making our user group smaller again.

Should make it clearer or possible to see who's going to the event. Faces? Friends going?

Should be “livelier” - maybe additional pictures/gifs to the events to make it more exciting. As it is now it looks like a list or calendar of sorts.

The possibility of making your own events makes it more attractive.

Should look over the main menu - any other way of making it? Filters? Is it at all needed? Possible to make it smaller so that one doesn't need filters?

Could be even more focus on the social part.

We also had a function on the last prototype that gave you the option of joining a “fadder-gruppe” instead of being placed right into one. This part was a little unclear and should therefore be made more clear.

“Since it now is a feature in SiO, should it only be for SiO events maybe?” We thought about this but came to the conclusion that, no, there shouldn't only be SiO events as the whole point of the app is to collect all events into one place - to make it easier for new students to find relevant things. I see the point, and I agree to some degree, but only being able to choose SiO events makes the app a little less “free” again. Maybe this means we should have made an independent app after all??

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Prototype 1:

This version was supposed to be stricter. Here you choose a theme that sounds interesting, when you’ve selected one you are imidediately put in a group chat. From there you can choose the specific event you want to go to, and that event shows up for the others in the chat and they can vote it up or down. Once you all agree on what event you want to go to, you go together.

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Prototype 2:

This version was supposed to be a little more loose, where students post their own events and you can choose to join or not.

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Flowcharts over week 3

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Research (week 2)

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The Web and the City - Week 2

In week two we ended up going for “the event” app and started our research. We went out in the streets and started interviewing students at different schools.

A short summary of the information we collected:

The guidance we got throughout the week was to challenge us in making extreme versions of our apps, so that it may help open our horizons more as I think we were all a little too caught up in a very limited bubble. This helped us in one way, but it also strayed us away from our original “event app” idea as we suddenly ended up with three different themes again, instead of three different versions of an event app. I think my group realised this too, but we were a little confused as to what was right, and therefore went with presenting them.

We changed our question of issue:

Geo Kafé: It matches you with a group of people who have passed the same cafe, puts you all in a group chat and gives you the opportunity to meet each other at said cafe. 

Mat-appen: You can invite a group of students home and share a meal with them. A cheaper way of “buying” meals, plus you get to be social and meet new people. 

Spin for event: A randomised event app where you spin a wheel and it gives you a random event with a discount for the event or another place. When you received your event you are also placed in a group with other people going to the same event as you. There you can talk and meet up before or after the event.

Feedback and reflections:

Our horizons grew, but I think our confusion grew too haha... 

Are events the goal or the means to get to know the city?

Is it possible to go to more than one event? Or go through more places along the way?

Look more at what students do and where they go - places instead of events.

We also strode a little away from our user group as we kind of started focusing on students in general more than new students in Oslo. That would have to change the comming week.

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The Web and the City - Week 1

The first week we (Adrian and Mathilde and me) brainstormed possible themes for our app. We made mind-maps and noted down anything and everything we could think of of subjects we found interesting. 

We ended up with three subjects that we further brainstormed through - “what’s happening in Oslo?”, the weather, and mental health.

We decided on “what’s happening in Oslo?” out of the pros and cons we noted down. And also decided on our user group which would come to be new students in Oslo.

At the end of the week we presented our three app themes for this subject:

Theme nr.1: An app that shows students relevant events in their area. And gives students information about student discounted tickets.

Theme nr.2: An app that gives an overview of cafes in Oslo. And lets the students leave ratings and recommendations.

Theme nr.3: An app that shows you what you should wear for today’s weather, and motivates you to go out and explore Oslo’s culture by tipsing them on a place to go. Also shows student discounts.

Feedback and reflections:

Give students a bigger motivation to use the app then just for student discounts.

Formulate your question of issue differently, “make Oslo more attractive as a student city” for ex.

Make the app more social and more student directed.

How to make the event app not just a calendar? Can people suggest their own events?

Are there other ways of taking the cafe app? How to not make it just a list?

Regarding the weather app - is one that dependant on the weather to go out? The weather may not change much sometimes.

Think of how to give access to stuff in a new way.

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A City Observation (webpage)

In this project we were going to make a website documenting an observation or something we found interesting in the streets of Oslo.

I observed what kind of a role graffiti and street art has in the streets of Oslo as it might be a contradicting subject. I wrote and reflected more about this on the webpage.

You can find my webpage on netlify here.

A screenshot:

Small screen recording:

Reflections:

Coding takes a long time when you're new to it. I used too much time figuring things out and testing new things out that didn't work, and suddenly I realised my page ended up being pretty simple. Nonetheless it was a fun learning experience, and I got a lot out of it despite what the results where.

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Results of our app prototype for the workshop cashier at AHO

We made an app to make the payment in the workshop easier. In the video over you can see how the app is used and a few simple examples of what it could be like to pay for an item. 

Making it clean, easy to understand and were our goals, as the original payment terminal has too many functions making it confusing.

Presentation slides:

(Video was shown of first prototype here.)

(Video was shown of the final product here - the same one as above.)

Feedback and thoughts:

A good final result on the design interface.

Should show more evidence from the research/ user results.

Regarding the payment terminal we could have tried hiding parts of the screen to see what difference that made for users.

Is an app the best solution, or should the interface of the terminal just be changed?

I also realised along the way that the problem we found wasn't maybe the main problem to solve. Like from the point above - maybe we should have tried changing the interface of the terminal. Personally I agree with that after reflecting on it, and will take that into consideration for future projects. Jumping into making an app first isn't always the best!

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Prototype testing of a very simple version of the workshop app where we tried only focusing on the flow and interaction in the app.

The results gave us verification that it was understandable, simple and straightforward - just like we tried to make it. The only thing that seemed unclear were the buttons - if the “pay” and “scan” in the beginning could both be pressed even if there were no items in the inventory - which we noted and would try to improve.

Screenshots of the prototype in order:

1. The first screen that comes up in the app. You can see old receipts or scan items.

2. Your camera comes up and you can scan items in the workshop. The QR code is an example of a solution for the workshop if this app would be a reality. There is also a search button in case you would like to write it instead, or you can't find the scan code. (We decided to not focus on that feature too much).

3. As the camera recognises the scanned item, a pop-up will appear with information of the item (name, price, and things to be aware of while using this item) and there would also be a possibility to write in quantity and measurements for items that require that. A calculator that does the adding up on prices for them was one of the things a lot of students commented on they would have liked, so we wanted to add that built in feature for them.

4. When you then clicked “add” it takes you back to the front page where you can see the item you scanned. From there you can scan more or go to pay.

5. At the check-out you see all your items and the total of the price as you can from there choose the form of payment you want to use. We would want to add many forms of payments so that the app could be used by all students.

6. You will at last get a confirmation that you payed for the items and that they are now in your “receipts”.

7. Clicking on “receipts” would lead you to this page with your history. By clicking them, more information about what you bought that day will come up.

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Advertisement for Pepsi Max results.

As we only had a time limit of 40 sec, there were a lot of things I did not have the possibility to add like I had originally planned. For example, I wanted to make the tension last longer and have different elements play in it. The feedback I got was similar in addition to some amateur details (such has not having a new glass for when I poor the drink in) and maybe I could have sprayed the glass and box to make it look fresh. 

It was a fun experience nonetheless, and it definitely encouraged me to use video editing as a design method further!

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Story board for Pepsi Max ad

A lot of changes where made while filming as I realised, yes, like my teacher had warned us, it would probably be too long, and not everything worked out like I imagined it - which is normal! 

However, I would have preferred it to be longer and have all the elements I needed in it - I personally think the commercial would have been better if so. But that was not the case for this project!

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As recommended I made a list of things I need to get done before Friday when everything has to be finished!