Exploratory design: a mobile app for dog park patrons
My Role: UX Research/Design · Visual Design
When interviewing the group, their main concern was being able to inform each other when they intended to visit Yard Bar without inundating each other with group text messages, or needing social media accounts, since they're not happy with the direction most social media platforms are going.
Our goal for phase one was to make learning our courses intuitive, enjoyable, and responsive. They also needed to be designed to fit into a busy healthcare professional schedule, such as during a quick lunch break, all the while enforcing sequential module completion to preserve learning integrity.
I conducted interviews to understand these users and their needs. They liked being able to coordinate meetings at Yard Bar, but they had many concerns, such as device compatibility, using social media, and sharing with people outside of their group.
I made the field forms and buttons larger, and removed the less accessible color on all buttons throughout the app. I also made the login process more interactive in the final prototype.
The profile page didn't really stand out when comparing it to the activity feed. It needed more presence and the ability to customize it for each of the Short Stacks's dogs.
The activity page wasn't as clear as the users would like. It was hard to differentiate one user from another. The final prototype took these design issues into consideration.
The search bar was originally at the bottom, next to the keyboard. This wasn't intuitive for the Short Stacks users, so I moved it to the top. I also made this section more interactive in the prototype so the user had a better sense of its functionality.
The users really wanted to see what it would look like to change profile information, so I made sure to make this as interactive as possible in the prototype. I also made the notifications look cleaner and easier to understand.
All of the Short Stacks group loved the most recent prototype of this app. Their feedback really encouraged me to make a design that looks and feels better to the users.
I need to ensure that all buttons and fields are large enough when I create my prototypes. I also discovered, that if it could be customizable and interactive, users probably want those features when they test prototypes.
