Design Assignment 1.2
12 Ideas
1) Research a recipe and then get all the ingredients delivered to your home
2) Hardware Bluetooth measurement to tell you when it’s cooked
3) Team builder, figures out when people work the best
4) Self confidence booster that other people submit to anonymous, screens it for bad words and doesn’t allow them to go through
5) An app that tracks your eye and head movement and starts screaming at you when you get distracted
6) An app that tracks people with narcolepsy and wakes them up during class
7) An app that translates your speech on the webcam or text to the person you’re talking to so you can understand each other even when you speak different languages.
8) A haircut machine where you type in your head dimensions and the haircut you want and just sit under it for 15 or so minutes app
9) A machine that puts makeup for you. app
10) A tutorial app that you submit what you want to learn about, and just for tutorials, and it searches all the ones out there and compiles them into one significant one
11) An app that looks at how often you prioritize tasks and then programs their importance.
12) App that tells you checklist of all the stuff you need to bring with you each day.
Favorite Idea
The idea that I picked was a real-time translation texting app that enables each user to type in their own languages and receive a corresponding translated version of the other user’s message.
The interviewees that I spoke to for Design Assignment 1.1 were working mothers and they mentioned language barriers when interacting with clients overseas as well as with their own relatives that often live in other countries. I thought this was a great way to fix that, and it’s an app I would definitely use as well.
Feedback from User
The user I interviewed is a research assistant and entrepreneur at Haas Business School named Josh.
1) He was confused about the format required for the username
2) He was confused about the format required for the phone number
3) The language bar should have been a dropdown instead of a “fill in the blank”, which also confused him
4) The message at the bottom of the home screen that asks the user “Check your texts!” in order to validate their number was confusing
5) I went for simplicity in my design but often the screen was too blank for comfort
6) The name of the App is “Chinwag” which is not a term known to some people and therefore the button with “Chinwag” on it meant to be pressed to start a conversation was confusing
7) The search button wasn’t clear as to what it was searching
8) The speech bubbles were the wrong direction
9) I used a flower button to denote “settings” because I am a Snapchat user and assumed everyone knew what it meant but he was not and did not know what it meant.
10) He requested that there be more examples and more handholding rather than the simple layout
11) Also the login button is supposed to be above the sign up button. That was a deal breaker for him.
12) When the person first opens the app, they see both the login and sign up buttons. He thought that was too abstract. He suggested a “don’t have username? Sign up”
13) He also suggested that Ali Baba was a website that has a similar thing going but only for buying mechanical parts.
14) Not asking for a username in the first page
15) Lastly, I would summarize the “profile” button and the “log out” and the “import contacts” button and place them all under the “settings” button.
Design Assignment 1.1
Description of Interviewees
Due to the great fortune of not having any classes on Fridays this semester (more time to study yay) I was able to interview 2 of my aunts and a family friend. All 3 are working mothers, who are the main homemakers for their families as well as have a part or full-time occupation.
Since the instructions required that we upload two photos that shows us together, I have included two (not so artistic--hope I don’t get design points docked off) photos of me and my aunts. I interviewed another family friend as well but she didn’t want her picture to be “anywhere online”.
Summary of Interview 1
42-year-old Mother of 4 and a journalist/writer as well as middle school teacher
From Subject 1, which I will abbreviate as S1 henceforth, I learned that mothers are often heavily involved with if not the sole providers for tutoring and academic help to their children. S1 cited Excel as the hardest program to use for her. She expressed frustration at being unable to help her daughter with her annual science fair because they require graphs and charts as a way of displaying the results of the project. She said that she has no idea how to even learn how to use the programs. She knows the value of having these skills but there is no obvious help to just look up things like “how to make a table” or “how to make a graph”.
She also pointed to the fact that as a mother she is always on the go and she needs to be able to do computing tasks while walking around. “I no longer sit in front of a computer. I do everything on my phone. But I can’t make these graphs on my phone.”
Memorable quote: “I know how to surf the net really well. I just don’t know how to make graphs and organize data. I can’t, it’s so confusing.”
Summary of Interview 2
54 -year-old Single Mother of 6 and anesthesiologist
S2 told me that she really likes technology and likes to use it in her work. Her main issue with it however was that it has gotten more complex in recent years. Whereas before, technology was really simple and easy to replace, today if you break one piece of it or if any vital feature is damaged, there is no quick fix. She says that as a single mother, she’s struggled most with expenses such as replacing technologies that were only partially broken. “Today because of the complex technology, it’s hard and expensive to fix it and you are always better off buying the new thing.”
She also mentioned that as a mother, technology has caused jealousy between her kids because there are always new versions of products and they see kids at school that have the newest thing and feel inferior, which made her have to buy them a new thing. She wishes that technology was less about
exploiting people’s wallets and more about actually solving people’s problems. She also complained that some “upgrades” aren’t even upgrades at all and they just make a new version because it’s the time to.
Summary of Interview 3 (not pictured)
47-year-old Single Mother of 3, writer, and professor of English
“I don’t have the patience and motivation to sit down and figure out how it functions. I have 60 apps already on my phone when I buy it, and that’s too much. There’s an excess of technology and every second there’s something new and every second, there’s an upgrade.”
S3 says she wishes technology was simpler and faster, rather than doing a ton of things but taking more time. She complained that it takes forever to upload a photo on her phone. “I don’t like technology because I don’t understand it. I have an old soul. I like the smell of ink on paper instead of all this technology. I always print out my reading assignments because I like the feel of it.” She complained that the excess of apps and technology, especially ones that come pre-loaded in products, is very overwhelming and that it feels like they come up with new apps every second, and that they use the quantity of apps to define the price, when you don’t need half of them.
Memorable quote: “I don’t understand it. Maybe I need a baby version of the things they’re making.”
Common Patterns in the Technology Usage of a Working Mother
In common, all 3 mothers noted price and user-friendliness as their main factors for liking/disliking products. Most felt that their issues of greatest contention were with the software world, such as the apps on their smart phones and the programs used for presentations and data. They felt that home products had for the most part become convenient and reliable, but the greatest stresses they had was with knowing which new phone to buy or getting used to the new apps it comes with. They would like more intuitive built-in tutorials in programs like Excel. They also expressed difficulty with communication with other people who work in other countries as well as their family members who prefer to text in other languages.
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