Spend your money on something good
2 weeks, individual project
Tools: Pen and Paper, OmniGraffle, Pop, Keynote, Sketch
Fiona is 28 years old and travels a lot. She goes 2-3 times a year on business trips, backpacking at least once a year for about 2-3 weeks, and usually also on a European vacation once a year.
Design a rough interactive paper prototype that addresses a key common problem in your partners’ life.
I created a mobile app that allows Fiona to turn her spare foreign currency change into points, which she can then either donate to a cause she cares about, or collect and spend on in-app purchases.
For this project I worked in two phases.
In the Discovery phase I focused on research and in the Develop phase I focused on design.
User Interview, concept map, user flow, storyboard
Rapid Paper prototype, clickable prototype, digital wireframes, high-fidelity mockups
I began by interviewing Fiona and getting to know more about her. It became clear that she loves travelling and goes on trips around the world often both for work and pleasure. I tried to understand her needs as a traveller and identify potential difficulties she encounters. We talked about money management when visiting a foreign country and Fiona shared that she’s always left with spare change she doesn’t know what to do with. It turned out that usually she would bring it home and let it sit in a drawer or she might spend it on the airport just so she doesn’t keep it home. Identifying that as a problem I wanted to help Fiona spend her money on something that matters to her. I conducted a market research and found out that none of the competition is dealing with physical change.
I designed a solution, which allows Fiona
to go to any duty free shop where she is able to give her change to the
cashier, who then prints a receipt for her with a unique number. She then
enters the number into the app, the amount is displayed on the screen and she’s
ready to use it the way she wishes to.
I created a rapid paper prototype, which I
tested with 3 people, including Fiona, and used their feedback to make
improvements.
In the second part of the Develop phase I
worked on the visual design of the app. I started by creating a mood board
where I gathered visual references I thought are suitable for the app concept.
It helped me think how I’d like the user to feel when using the app. I started
looking at colours, fonts and icons, as well as coming up with word
associations for key concepts such as collect, donate, and shop. I developed a
brand personality by defining the qualities I want my brand to represent and
the voice & tone. Creating a style tile helped to narrow down all the ideas
I had for colours, typefaces and layouts. I used those consistently in my
screens and tested with people. The colour scheme didn’t test well so I changed
it to orange, which is believed to stimulate activity and encourage
socialization and represents joy, enthusiasm, creativity, expression. I got
positive feedback on new designs and insights on future recommendations for
development.
