Class & self project

Walking Partner

Collaborators
Heejin Son
Jasmine Yew
Mrinmayee Mandal
Timeline
March '22 - Present
Skills
Code: HTML, CSS, JS, Kotlin
Tools: Figma, Miro
User R & D: Prototyping, Usability Testing, Personas, Competitive Analysis, Customer Discovery

UI Designer / Developer

User Researcher

Success Evaluator

Summary

Market Research

Collaborators: Heejin Son, Jasmine Yew
My team and I, in the Spring semester of 2022 at Carnegie Mellon University, conducted customer discovery, created a financial model, and performed competitive analysis. We were placed third out of 11 teams by outside investors.

UI & Functionality

Collaborators: None
Prompted by this success, I decided to pursue the idea at University of Michigan as well. After further competitive analysis, creating personas, doing story mapping, and paper prototyping, I designed the entire UI and functionality of the app. I also conducted usability testing with 6 users for the final digital prototype.

Moving forward

Collaborators: Mrinmayee Mandal
I cherish this idea and believe it has potential to improve student communities. The UI and UX design is an iterative process that will improve as more usability testing is conducted. I am currently developing the app using HTML, CSS, JS, and Kotlin for Android platform with my colleague.

Problem Statement

Many students feel unsafe while walking back home from their college campus.

Students, especially who identify as women, queer, or a person of the global majority (POC), feel unsafe while walking alone to their homes at night.
‍
They are unwilling to take police's help (due to police brutality and systemic racism/sexism/homophobia towards these communities) or lack resources such as money and time to use public or private transportation in moments of need.
Dashboard mockup

Solution

Dashboard mockup

A smartphone app that pairs students so they can walk a mutual path and reach home safely.

March '22 - may '22, carnegie mellon university

Market Research

"Prevention is better than cure."

To better understand the potential of our solution, my team and I interviewed 5 students each, targeting diverse students who would both be likely and unlikely to use our app. Through this customer discovery, we learned what would motivate users to use our app and what makes our app unique in the market.

The main aspect that struck us was one interviewee saying, "[the] app is focused more around prevention rather than curing once a mishap had already occurred." Based on this research, my team and I developed a financial model, performed competitive analysis on other apps such as Noonlight and Panic Button, and narrowed our audience to be only college students. Please feel free to look over the final presentation of this customer discovery that details this process.

My team and I presented our final idea to three investors who liked our idea and its defense and placed us at the third position out of 11 teams. This boosted my confidence and I decided to make this app a reality.
October '22 - december '22, university of michigan

UI & Functionality

User Research

My next opportunity to work on this app came in the course SI 582 - Introduction to Interaction Design. I broke down the overarching problem into sub-problems:
  1. Rides are either expensive or need scheduling in advance, thus making them inflexible for changing schedules.
  2. Buses may not arrive on time due to detours or weather conditions.
  3. Current options for riding buses or sharing rides involve interacting with strangers.
  4. Students might be uncomfortable calling/interacting with police (campus or otherwise) to drop them to their destination.
To better understand my target users and validate the above sub-problems, I created personas after interviewing different students.

Competitive Analysis

I rformed competitive analysis on existing apps such as Noonlight, BSafe, Panic Button, and Life 360 based on the following criteria:
  1. User friendliness (I downloaded all apps and tried to use them)
  2. Readily available safety features (free vs exclusive)
  3. How much are they trying to prevent mishappening rather than responding to it (prevention vs cure)
  4. Popularity (checked reviews and ratings on app store)
  5. Addressing of the above sub-issues
  6. Uniqueness

Functionality

To better visualize user flow from login to the end of the trip, I did story mapping (given below) of the three "pro" personas in Miro.

I then began designing the interface while capturing the design rationale by QOC method (Questions, Opinions, and Criteria). I found this step crucial as I was forced to make intentional design choices while documenting my process so I could validate my decisions later in the process.
Dashboard mockup
Story Mapping of the three "pro" personas

Paper prototype

To turn my decisions tangible, I did low-fidelity prototyping using a paper prototype to solidify the user flow from login to rating their partner at the conclusion of the trip. This involved 12 steps with 31 interactions.

After conducting usability testing, I decided to include more pop-up dialogue boxes to keep the users in loop with the pairing process happening backend and the steps they needed to take to meet their partner.
Dashboard mockup

Digital prototype

The final stage was using the feedback gotten on my paper prototype to transform the UI into a digital form. Using Figma, I prototyped numerous screens. I used quiet pastel shades for my color palette to provide a smoother and calming experience so that the user felt more at ease when they opened the app.
‍
As a designer, I wanted to prioritize user's safety. This meant implementing features such as a SOS button, ability to have a list of saved partners, enter custom current location/destination, ratings, chatting with partner after getting matched. Interact with my prototype here.
Dashboard mockup
SELF PROJECT

Moving Forward...

My app still has a long way to go. I am iterating on the interface periodically and developing both the frontend and backend of it. The current goal is to have a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that can successfully login users, pair them, and assist their trip to conclusion.

Later, I would like to launch the app in the google store and/or become partner with either universities so that student communities can utilize it.
Connect with Me!
Spandan Sharma © 2023