144 I VALENTO SEE YOU THERE I 145 08 SEE YOU THERE MOBILE NAVIGATION APP PROJECT OVERVIEW MY ROLE In early 2014, my friend, Dwight-Anthony Augustin, and I decided to create an app that would be useful and available to everyone for free. e idea of See You ere was to develop an app that solves the issue of not being able to find your friends to meet with in a fast and simple way. By simple I mean in a way that first time users of the app would intuitively know how to operate the app the very first time they use it. For the project my role was to be the creative director and UX designer for the app. I designed how each screen would look and feel, picked which colors would represent the right atmosphere of the app, and determined the overall layout of the app for the best user experience. I also had to do plenty of research to be familiar with Google Material Design guidelines for design to reduce the amount of learning needed to use the app.
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1 4 4 I V A L E N T O S E E Y O U T H E R E I 1 4 5
08SEE YOU THEREMOBILE NAVIGATION APP
PROJECT OVERVIEW
MY ROLE
In early 2014, my friend, Dwight-Anthony Augustin, and I decided to create an app that would be useful and available to everyone for free. The idea of See You There was to develop an app that solves the issue of not being able to find your friends to meet with in a fast and simple way. By simple I mean in a way that first time users of the app would intuitively know how to operate the app the very first time they use it.
For the project my role was to be the creative director and UX designer for the app. I designed how each screen would look and feel, picked which colors would represent the right atmosphere of the app, and determined the overall layout of the app for the best user experience. I also had to do plenty of research to be familiar with Google Material Design guidelines for design to reduce the amount of learning needed to use the app.
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The initial idea came up while hanging out with friends but were split up into groups to meet with each other at the mall. The confusion came when no one knew the address of the mall we were supposed to meet at and even when we were in the same area we had a hard time finding each other with so many different sections within the mall. After realizing that this struggle happens on a consistent basis for so many people, I broke down the situation into smaller parts to fully understand why this issue occurs so much through my own personal experience as well as twenty other random individuals I did not know that were willing to answer my questions. Here are the most frequent issues that seem to come up with everyone that I surveyed:
People cannot always find an address of their current location without a street sign.
Even with an address, people have difficulty telling someone else how to arrive at their exact location.
When meeting with others, people want to know when the other person will arrive and where their current location is at that time.
People talk and text on their phones while driving to give/receive directions and locations.
THE PROBLEM
NO ADDRESS.
I NEED DIRECTIONS.
ARE WE THERE YET?
EYES ON THE ROAD.
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In reference to those issues, I have created clear set of goals and objectives to help guide this project in the right direction and to not lose track of the mission while developing the app. This list allowed us to remain focused on the root of the problem, how our product will solve that problem, and give us a way to measure the success of our efforts.
Allow people to send their exact location to another person with a simple and fast action.
Create a method to have users constantly updated on each other’s current locations.
Reduce amount of cell phone usage while driving as much as possible, decreasing the risk of an accident or receiving a ticket.
Keep the interface as minimal as possible without losing functionality or creating confusion.
SPEED AND ACCURACY.
CONSTANT UPDATE.
LESS TALK AND TEXT.
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
GOALS & OBJECTIVES
With the primary issues and goals in mind for the app, I created wireframes to help map out how the app would function and how it would lead the user to the desired tasks with the least amount of taps or swipes as possible. Once the wireframes were completed and we were happy with the overall flow, I began creating the final comps that would eventually become the official designs for app.
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W I R E F R A M E / F L O W M A P
WIREFRAMES
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Invite Friends Invite Friends
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Simplicity was key to designing See You There so it could lead the users in the right direction of where they wanted to go while still giving them a great visual experience. With such a small canvas and a simple concept, we eliminated as many screens as possible while still offering all the functionality the user would need. The overall layout of the app is similar to most other apps with some Material design elements to increase familiarity and reduce the amount of learning needed to use the app.
FINAL DESIGN
O P E N I N G S C R E E N / I N T R O
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TUTORIAL SCREENS
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SETUP SCREENS
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Current Address
Menu Button
MAIN SCREEN BREAKDOWN
Quick Send
Zoom To Current Locat ion
Save Locat ion
Share Locat ion
Show Markers /Saved Locat ions
User Prof i le
Current Locat ion
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MENU & OPTIONS SCREENS
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CONTACTS SCREENS
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NAVIGATION SCREENS
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NOTIFICATIONS & ALERTS
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ANDROID WEAR SCREENS
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Some of the difficulties while developing See You There mainly involved the contacts pages. Early versions of the app had poor hints of how to send/request locations and were constantly overlooked. We overcame this by including a double tap as a more interactive way of notifying the user how to send and request locations. This also helped combat accidental single tap actions while scrolling through contacts. A few of the users were concerned about the app’s privacy due to its live tracking feature. But once explained that only users with given consent were able to see their location, they were more comfortable with using the app.
We are extremely pleased with See You There considering it is the first app we have ever put out and overcoming challenges we faced creating it. After releasing See You There into the Google Play Store, the response from our users were generally positive. We found was that the users really enjoyed the overall branding of the app from the name, logo, and the colors chosen. We received positive feedback of the simplicity of the layout and how easy it was to navigate through, as well as not having any extra bulk features that were not necessary. This gained experience was well worth it and will better prepare us for future projects.
