UIUX Designer
I-Books Donation Application
Overview
Role: UI/UX Designer
Context: Mobile book donation application
Duration: September /2021 - October /2021
Problem Statement
Books will remain one of the sources and mediums of knowledge for the next generations. According to UNESCO, 'Pupils in the poorest countries are suffering from the lack of basic textbooks to learn.', i-books, a project under Kodecamp was allocated to me. I was assigned to create a solution to how people can donate their used books to schools, pupils and strangers.
Solution
To provide a solution to this problem, I need to understand how donation applications work. I used donation applications as a means of inspiration. I found research online that dealt with implementing android applications for book donation (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9160283). I designed a research plan, enroll participants for research questionnaires and design a user-focused book donation mobile application. This application is able to link donors with schools and public libraries.
My Role
I worked on all the phases of this project. Usability tests, visual designs, user research and wireframe design were done by me.
Design Process
Empathize with users – Define the problem – Ideate solutions – Prototyping – Testing
Empathize with users
The user experience was my main focus during this course of this project. I conducted user interviews. 30 participants were enrolled for the purpose of good user research. The participant's ages range from 20 to 70 years. A questionnaire of 15 questions was rolled out and results were gathered using google analytics.
Competitive Analysis
Due to the nature of the problem, there was no current book donation application in Nigeria at the time this project was on. This was a difficult phase for me as I had to use competitors from other continents like Europe and Asia.
Pain Points
Three (3) major pain points were identified in the research phase which are:
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Time
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Data storage and protection
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Overwhelmed with information
Empathy Map
Design Process (User Flow)
I designed a simple user flow at the time of making this project. A better and more sophisticated user flow was later adapted and an upgrade was made this year.
Low Fidelity Wireframe
Utilizing the fundamental data I assembled from my user research, I began my low-fidelity design. This design was later used for the first usability testing. I experienced a ton of challenges during this stage as users couldn't arrive at the plan objective during the test so I needed to pause for a moment or two and upgrade my lo-fi configuration prior to running another usability test.
High Fidelity Wireframe
After collating a successful usability test result from the low-fidelity design, I moved to the next phase of creating a high-fidelity design. I picked the favourable colour that denotes donation and applied them to my Lo-Fi. The high fidelity was designed with a little adjustment from the low fidelity design. The hi-fi was designed to make an easy user flow towards the project's goal and to ensure the best experience for users.
Usability Testing For High Fidelity Designs
To ensure that I have actually provided a solution to the problem I was solving, I recruited 10 participants to help test out both the low-fidelity prototype and high-fidelity prototype. I observed as the participants interacted with the app, they helped me pinpoint areas that needed adjustment and corrections. Results were noted and an affinity map was created to identify patterns. NB: Testing was done remotely. The usability test was done four different times as my PO was really interested in the result of the test and the final result shows the level of success of the project.
Final Product
Accessibility Considerations
My main focus is to fix a route between users and organizations that help with donations. I created an application whose main responsibility is to give the perfect user experience while using it.
Takeaways
I overcame lots of personal bias during the stages involved in this project. I had to redesign twice because I couldn't get the user experience I wanted. I now understand why user experience should be the primary aim of a product designer. The application puts users and their needs first.
Future Activities
User experience never ends, I would do the following:
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Conduct another round of usability studies to confirm if all user pain points have been addressed.
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Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need for future updates.
Tools I used:
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Figma
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Miro
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Google Documents, slides, spreadsheet, form
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Zoom
Other minor projects I designed can be found in the following links
NB: These are the details needed to access the pages
Username: michaela@pellsea.com
Password: 123456
