Category: Week 3: App Jam

The app starts as the user signs in. 

The homepage allows the user to navigate to the different features. 

From here moving the the diet screen the user fills out a quick questionnaire to customise their diet. 

This diet page allows them to see their total ‘eco-points’ for the week. 

The daily page lists the dish for each meal and the eco-points that correspond to each one.

Moving to the daily plan recipes can be reviewed, added to the shopping basket and reviewed. Sustainable shops are easily viewed below the recipe itself.

Exploring more recipes and even sustainable restaurants are available in the app. 

Finally the impact page shows users how their diet effects the environment and allows them to learn how to reduce this.

Evaluating this app jam I am happy with the outcome of the project but I am not happy with the process that I used. The double diamond design method works as a basic framework but sticking to it too much means wasted time and less time spent prototyping and detailing the concept. Over the coming weeks I am looking to explore and formulate a better way to approach app jams, rapid prototyping and new ways to critically analyse ideas as I go along. I have started to read Sprint by Jake Knapp from Google Ventures about the design sprint method that they apply. I am looking to explore some ways that I can tackle app jams and projects using this method. 

Throughout the project I found time management very difficult and it took me a lot longer to fit in this app jam than I wanted. I was not able to commit two full days to the jam due to heavy work schedule and family commitments. This has put me a week behind on the course and I will need to speed up my process in future jams. I also did not manage to detail the app as much as I wanted and there are some elements that are not as easy to use as I want; such as the explore and impact pages.

Key areas to improve:

• Design process: Explore new ways to tackle app jams and other projects. Look into ways that I can pick and choose certain design techniques for the task at hand. In order to do this researching different techniques will be very important over the course of this module. Design thinking, design sprints, agile design techniques and many more will be explored and learnt to improve the depth of my knowledge in this area.
• Creative prototyping: This area doesn’t need a total change as I have managed to design, iterate and prototype the app to a satisfying level of creativity and refinement. Nevertheless, similarly to the design process this area is one that I am looking to explore further, develop and master. I need to explore new ways to design and prototype quickly whilst critiquing my progress. Exploring how to make decisions quickly, how best to design in an agile manner will help to improve my end concept greatly. In order to explore this further I will look into IDEO’s design methods, Lightning Decision Jams and Design Sprints to see the ways in which Incan solve problems and prototype concepts.
• Time management: Time management was difficult in this process as I was unable to start the app jam as early as I would like. I then spread the app jam out too much and it took me many nights to complete the jam. In order to improve I have started to plan each project and week’s work on Trello in order to keep onto of the work. The other areas above should help speed up my process too and enable me to have a better work-masters-life balance (in theory). This will have to be evaluated weekly in order to see where I can improve and what areas are taking up the most time.
• Programming: I did not get the chance to explore programming in this app jam as I do not feel confident in my ability. Over the coming weeks I will continue learning Swift and applying it to my projects. I will mainly prototype through Figma for the rest of this module but I will test my ability in Swift to evaluate my progress.

Despite these problems the app that I have created does respond to the theme in an interesting and topical way, however, greater familiarity with app jams, agile design methods and a more solid knowledge of Figma and UI will lead to better results in the future.

Moving from an idea to the beginnings of a concept started by exploring what the app does, who the app is for and what the features are. At this stage it is important to narrow down features, cutting out any that are unnecessary or bloat the app. During this stage I came up with many more ideas and I could have cut the features down even more in order for it to be easier to use, more streamlined and specified. Looking back I now feel that I have tried to combine too many features into the app, but by the time of realising it was too late to change. Whilst the Eco-points are an interesting feature I think I could have gamified the app in order to promote sustainable behaviour and simplify the app. Also exploring where to buy sustainable food is good how often do you shop at multiple shops to get your produce. This is not something many people do and therefore may be a redundant feature.

 

The next step was to turn these features into paper prototypes. This was a quick way to come up with ideas for how the app works, how users interact with it and thinking about how features work together. At this stage I was purely thinking about user experience and how that relates to the features. I did also start mapping out a user scenarios but I soon found that this was just confirming my assumptions as to how the app should work. This was a good task that helped me hone the app, but for an app jam I do not think it is relevant. This is not to say user research and mapping doesn’t have a place but I now feel that through gut feeling, prototyping and iterations the user experience becomes clearer and more refined. Exploring how design sprints test their concepts during their 5 day prototyping session leads me to think that in 48 hours using gut feelings and empathy are better methods than heavy user research.

User scenarios

 

Initial app storyboards

 

The paper prototypes were refined and then moved into a basic wireframe allowing me to see how the app works and how you interact with the features. All digital prototyping was done in Figma and during this app Jam I was not focussing on programming due to my grater familiarity with UI design over my knowledge of coding. As seen below the wireframe was a good basis for setting out the pages needed and allowed me to start refining features and the interface itself.

Initial app wireframe in Figma

From the wireframes I started to iterate further quickly improving the app pages and features. Adding content, colour scheme and prototyping further pushed this project.

Detailed app prototype 

Whilst during the early parts of the process I came across problems in lack of understanding and knowledge of agile design methodologies, here I came across problems in time management. It took me a lot longer to design and prototype the app than I wanted. In the future I will first design the wireframes and then create a style guide for the app in order to speed up the process of inserting content, buttons etc. This is down to a lack of effective workflow at the moment and I will quickly get on top of this problem.

At the start of the project I explored the theme give to us: Guide, Opponent and Restricted. My initial task was to quickly explore what these meant using a thesaurus generator to explore other meanings and similar words. Exploring the different meanings that I could find for the words allowed me to reframe the theme and think further afield. This is a quick way to think about the way these words make you feel, allow you to stray away from initial and obvious thoughts in order to help spark ideas.

I soon found that, to me, I believed that Guide represents the app, Opponent is a problem the user faces, and restricted is what is stopping you. Therefore my app would have to help the user solve a problem or reach a target goal in order to respond to the theme. Moving on I did not want to stick with these religiously but use the theme as a means to explore concepts in a different way and use it as a reviewing tool.

During the next stage of the app jam I started to formulate some ideas for what the app could solve, what it could do for the user and how it relates to the theme. Using a mind mapping software allowed me to quickly write down ideas and cut down on the amount of time I spent organising them.

Nevertheless, evaluating my progress at this point I found that I was spending too much time coming up with a variety of ideas when one of the first ideas I came up with was my final concept. Generally this would not be a massive problem but during an app jam when time is scarce this was a problem. In hindsight sticking to the double diamond method wasted some time at this stage and created frustration that I wasn’t moving on quick enough. I was too caught up in broadening my range of ideas rather than spotting the good idea straight away. In the future I need to develop a way to evaluate my ideas, quickly test them and see which ones have the ability to form solid concepts. Further research into how I may apply this to my design projects will be key to a more efficient and positive workflow.

I started to evaluate my ideas with the idea for a sustainable food app coming out as a topic I am interested in and one that I feel would be worth progressing further. The initial idea of the app is to allow the user to create environmentally friendly weekly meal plans that tracks the amount of ‘eco points’ you use for each meal. This allows the user to visualise what impact their diet has and where they can improve. Features include a map to explore sustainable shops and produce nearby, recipe cards for sustainable meals, a diet creation tool and pages showing your impact and where you can improve.

Overall by this stage of the app jam I had explored the theme and come up with a solid concept for my app, but the process behind it can definitely be improved. This area is key to a good project as picking an idea that does not work as a concept can ruin a project or make it more difficult to complete well. Below is a list of resources that I will explore in order to create a better design process.

• Sprint by Jake Knapp
• Hooked by Nir Eyal
• Become a UX Designer Lynda course: https://www.lynda.com/learning-paths/Design/become-a-user-experience-designer
• Design Thinking: Prototyping Lynda course: https://www.lynda.com/Design-Techniques-tutorials/Design-Thinking-Prototyping/486758-2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3adesign+thinking%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2

 

The brief:

An App Jam is designed to stimulate a developer in the rapid development or creation of an app. Through short and condensed development loops you quickly explore and improve concepts and prototypes. App jams usually take place over 48 hours. This time restraint makes sure there is no wasted time as the developer needs to quickly explore paths and turn them into prototypes to test and improve, before the final production standard app. 

My plan:

For this app jam I do not have this amount of time to dedicate and the last few weeks have been hectic and have unexpectedly pushed me off schedule. I am a few days behind on creating content which is pushing week 3 work into week 4. My plan to get on top of this is to focus on completing week 3’s work during the week and then doing week 4’s work over the weekend. This will be achievable due to a more normal schedule but I will also have to keep an eye on myself and not to burn out early on. I am looking to spend 2-3 hours a night from Tuesday to Thursday on this app jam. I will finish off any work needed on Saturday morning unless I have completed it, but that is my final deadline. 

Regarding methods of rapid ideation and development I am going to use a condensed double diamond method (as seen below). This design process follows two different stages that work well within a longer time frame and this rapid process.

Discover – This section pushed designers to look at the brief from a multitude of angles, thinking of fresh and innovative ideas. Spreading your thinking further afield than your first ideas as well as researching around the brief.

Define – Here designers and developers will makes sense of all the research and what the problem means. What matters most? What could be possible to achieve? Here you should develop a clear vision and plan to move forward in the process. This should frame the design challenge.

Develop – This stage is where you should start to form concepts, where they are prototyped, tested and iterated. This trial and error style helps designers to constantly improve and progress the ideas through short feedback loops. 

Delivery – During the delivery phase the final product is finalised and created from all the previous sections. 

Deliverables:

These 4 sections frame the process very nicely for this app jam as there is a nice balance to the project as a whole. In the past I have dedicated too much time to coming up with ideas and concepts without spending the time to reflect and evaluate them. The define section give me opportunity to do this without limiting the other areas.

I will start by exploring the theme and will initially research around this area. Once I have understood the brief I will begin exploring through the creation of mind-maps to push my thoughts and ideas further. The main deliverables in this project however are the prototypes and the final product. Paper prototypes will allow me to rapidly create and visualise different concepts and ideas. This is a method I really enjoy as I get a lot out of putting my thoughts onto paper. This will be a large part of my output along with more developed wireframes. Digital wireframes are also a great way to quickly create prototypes to test. I have used Adobe Xd and Sketch in the past and I will use one of these tools to create basic wireframes and more developed prototypes to test. For the final production I will create either a vertical or horizontal slice of the app (depending on what the app does). This will most likely be on Adobe Xd or Sketch as I have not been able to learn Swift to a standard where I feel confident to code an app and would be a waste of my time in this app jam.