We’ve jumped so far ahead...Shouldn’t we be third year students? Or maybe take a step back?
Why do we struggle to come up with an idea out of the blue and when we do, why do we struggle to start on it? And when we begin with it, why do we rush it instead of planning it out first?
Likewise, we already had our concept and vision and begun with it the same week. We managed our time very effectively until this date too but where we went wrong was that we were too focused on implementing our vision that we missed out the process of testing. In our eyes, we were planning on testing the idea by creating a simple app but the questions arose. Most of us in the group came across this question too but we never shared it with the group, thinking it’ll smoothen everything down as the weeks pass by but as the weeks passed by, it felt like we were missing the backbone of our project which was the user testing with prototype which could’ve simply been done with the use of pieces of paper even though we had surveys to help with the icons and the layout of the app.
After having a meeting with the APP LAB people, the range between the comparison of what we do and what is expected was wide because we missed out on the most important part but to realize why we have designed our brief, we needed to first understand what we are trying to prove. So now we have taken a step back, and started on the backbone of the project. We have now assigned new roles to each group members now just so that we are aware the work is getting done and the iteration is done every step of the way till the due date but because we are planning on taking this project to second year, it gives us a great opportunity to dig down and work on every detail just so that we’re taking bits of pieces next year and implementing our vision and the idea of us designing the brief would eventually be useful for the users under its own purpose.
As mentioned before about us taking a step back, we have now designed a wireframe which would help us fall back on if the vision isn’t as useful but with the use of wireframe, we have come to a conclusion of user testing by designing by hand, testing then transferring that digitally onto Adobe XD for a better look of prototype. While this is in process, we are working on the recipes which goes under the categories of vegan, meat, halal, vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free so the app isn’t restricted and user-friendly. What increases the value of the app is by having a decent layout for the app which includes its colour choices, the fonts, the character and its colour and what option are given to the users to play with to best fit their needs. At one point, we forgot to look back at our brief and vision which explains why we were rushing things but after the meeting, we have finally written the brief and vision down on a A3 paper and stuck it on our wall for a reminder because we felt that was something that needed more attention than being focused on creating an app.
This is nothing cheeky but we want to sell our ideas as well as the product but keep iterating while it is in the market. The future plan for this project as already been made but it is really up to us to organize ourselves better which we are but the roles will keep changing as that is another part of learning new things instead of sticking to one part and contributing to just one area (Devi, 10). The link given below is another area of study which shows why it is important for us humans to not just focus on one area but keeping the knowledge broad within many different areas.
To the tutors, it may seem like we haven’t gotten further but I feel like they need to see our individual work to judge upon the idea of working on the outcome while iterating. It is frustrating for the programmer having to change things on a regular basis but the questions like “Why can’t you test it as prototype before creating the outcome?” arise. Honestly speaking, I hate it when others ask us this question even though I understand where they are coming from but there are things when you need to test things differently if things are planning to be dug down deeply. What I am trying to say is I like the idea of testing it on users with a hand drawn to see their reaction, then show them the prototype which is digitally designed to again observe their reaction and get their feedback which we have gotten and applied to our daily practice in Studio 2 but we also want to test how they feel using this app. This helps us designers decide if the users the comfortable with the icons being at a certain place. One of the example was... while Melissa was digitally designing the prototype that Hooryah and I have designed and put together, we came across the idea of having arrows to either swipe left or right for the texts in the speech bubbles that is placed on top of Alfred and the debate was between me and Quentin about the feel of those small arrows. He has said that he likes the arrows to be on the bottom left because it would be closer to his thumb while cooking. So, what he was trying to say is that he likes to have his phone in his left hand while cooking with the right and I didn’t like the idea of having those arrows on the bottom because firstly, to me I don’t like to use my phone which my left hand or have my phone in my hand while I cook and secondly, I hold my phone differently than him and my fingers mostly thumb is closer to the arrows to where his thumb was closer to. In this case, I wanted the arrows to be on each side, inside of the bubble. All these small details we focus on is very beneficial and this is what I mean by testing the user’s feelings towards the apps too, not just their needs and the apps purpose.
We are working on developing our wireframe which then be transferred into designs with new ideas and iterated well enough to be transferred into digital format but even after the show case, it will be developed further to implement what we expected. We will work in this during the Christmas break even if we must, to have something we all wanted as a group because to us, our progress is our success even if we don’t meet the deadline. If we did, it would be great but this is nothing that can be produced over night.
REF:
Devi, S. (10, 10 9). Why are we so typical? Retrieved from Tumblr: https://sushmita-devi.tumblr.com/post/166211934219/why-are-we-so-typical
