For this assignment I was given the task of creating an app that featured at least two channels and could be anything I wanted to make.

Dude Where’s my Car?

  • Solo Project

  • Tools Used: Axure, Adobe Photoshop, Mural

  • Timeline: 3 weeks

  • Channels: Mobile, Smart Watch

The Problem

Chicago is a very big city and many of its residents face a multitude of issues. I started with conducting interviews with students on campus to see what common problems they faced.

Two big themes emerged for the interviews.

  • 1) I have trouble finding my car after attending popular events

  • 2) I can’t seem to find parking in the city

Based on this information I created a mood board to get an idea of what the app would be and what type of feel it would have.

Goals

Based on the interviews the app would need to have two main user goals

  • Help the user find their car (by way of a Air Tag location device)

  • Help the user find parking (based on Google analytics)

Next a competitive analysis was conducted to see if any similar apps that might be too similar. Two results were found that help the user find their parked car via pin drop GPS System. Neither app had a solution for finding parking.

Personas

The demographics and attribute data from the interviews shed some light on important aspects of what poteintal users would be. Using this data I created some sample personas and senarios. Some key takeaways from this data was that some particpants wanted very simple and easy navigation options and that the cost should be fairly low.

Typical User Senario

Sara is a local living in Chicago and is a full time master’s student studying Computer Science. She barely has any free time due to the amount of school work she has. However, when she found out that one of her favorite artists was coming to Chicago to perform, she knew she had to take out the time and go with her friends.

As she was nearing the venue she opened the Dude, where’s my car app to see if there was any free parking nearby. She saw that most of the lots were either full or too expensive. She decided to park on the street and hurried to the concert as she was already 30 minutes late.

After a magical, but exhausting concert, Sara started walking back to her car. She took out her phone and used the Dude, where’s my car app to get to her parking location. The app showed that the car was a 15 minute walk away. She started following the directions that the compass was pointing to.

She arrived at her car location and put away her phone. She was excited to get home and get a good nights sleep.

Early Design

The next step was to begin sketching out what I wanted the app to look like. Based on interviews the interface should be simple and easy to understand. Serveral iteriations were made through this Low-Fi process. These sketch represent what core features survived the process.

Mid-Fi Prototype

Unfortunately, I accidentally overwrote my Mid-Fi prototype with my Hi-Fi prototype.  I did manage to find some screenshots that I had taken for the assignment turn in.  During this phase I focused on bring about the structure of application to life.  It was important that everything flowed well because the next step was to preform usability tests with the Mid-Fi.  Performing these tests during this phase is good way to keep the user focused on the function of the app instead of being distracted by the apps visuals.

Usability Testing

Usability tests were conducted using volunteers from the DePaul University Research Pool and people who wanted to particpate from the local area. This testing was done on the Mid-Fi Prototype only so the users could focus on the features of the app and not get distracted by its appearance. Testing focused on four key tasks:

Test results were compiled together into a affinity diagram and analyized to see what improvments could be made.

Post Test Qustionaire

Testing Results

All users passed each task with no significant deviations in Quantitative data points such as time to task completion, happy path nonconformity, or task failures. Every user tested was able to quickly find the goal using the expected path to task success. Users were encouraged to “Think out loud” during testing to help me gain some Qualitative data and insight into what they were thinking when working on tasks. Post Test questionnaires revealed that all participants were happy with overall design and flow of the application.

  • There were a few suggestions that were collected:

  • Add lot size information in the parking finder

  • Make the parking finder information completely clickable

  • Make parking capacity more noticeable

  • Syncing devices should also allow the user to manage existing devices

  • Make Simple and Advanced navigation more distinguishable

The vast majority of these recommendations were added into the Hi-Fi Prototype.

Brand Guide

Next I wanted to build a brand guide to unify all the different all the different elements of the app.  I wanted each part to have a thought-out and specific meaning.  I created a logo the that would be easily recognizable but not too over the top in complexity. 

I picked out colors like cornsilk for the background as to overpower the rest of the app.  I wanted invoke a retro type feel to the band so I went with a orange peel color for the frames and a Polynesian Blue color for the buttons.  Keeping with the retro feel I made the font Cooper Black but made important notifications Arial so they would standout.

Hi-Fi Prototype

Here we have the Hi-Fi prototype with the brand guide and testing feedback changes implemented.

My Journey Through Iteration

This project had fairly quick timeline. When I look back to my early sketches and seeing the journey through the different iterations, I can’t help but feel proud of what I was able to accomplish.

What I learned:

  • No idea is out of reach if you put your mind to it

  • Axure gets sidelined by Figma a lot but it has some very useful features

  • Building my own brand for the first time was great experience

No project is perfect and if I had more time I would:

  • Build more a more detail map system for the advance mode

  • Build more complex animations for loading and searching

  • Create a more detailed search system

  • Finish some of the other screens that I didn’t have time for