Second Half

The beginning of this week marked a turn in the direction of my project. The rapid prototyping day we had last week got the wood burning upstairs and I ran into some hard questions about the app I've been designing. I realized that when an individual is making a large purchase like a bike (especially someone who is completely new to biking) they are not all that likely to purchase without first talking to a real person. While that is all well and good, it also means my app was a relatively trivial idea that wouldn't help many people.

The rapid prototyping reminded me of the importance humans place on self-built items. I'm much more likely to use something I designed and built myself than a similar device purchased from a store. While my app already employed a certain degree of "building" on the part of the user, it was dancing around the idea. Why not make it the centerpiece?

I've now re-imagined my project as an experience that one might find next to the sales counter in a bike shop. It would be a large touch screen displaying an environment that looks like a bike shop work bench. The user could select from a huge database of products (most likely limited to whatever brands the bike shop carries) and "build" his or her dream bike. The user could first select a frame make and model, "hang" it from the rack, and then work through selecting wheels, saddles, handlebars, components, colors, etc. for the bike. After the user is done, the system would present a document with a picture of the custom ride and the total cost as well as a breakdown of what components cost what. The document could also contain complementary products the shop carries, or other information about services the bike shop offers. The document could be printed off, emailed, or simplified and texted to a user. Here's a rough sketch of the idea:

 

Next steps involve redesigning my system map, scenarios, and possibly my content map. I'll be able to move forward after I fix what needs to be changed. 

Personas and Scenarios

Last week consisted of presenting our scenarios and personas for critique. Personas are something I've worked with for a while now and am pretty comfortable with their creation. I also really like personas - they can be an incredibly useful tool during the design process. Scenarios were newer to me, but after the in class discussion I felt much more comfortable with the idea. The distinction between a scenario and a use case was especially helpful. Here is a link to my personas and scenarios.

Early Semester Work

So I just realized I completely forgot about posting to this blog. I'll use the post to recap the last few weeks, and then make sure to post every week from here on out. Week 1 we started with our matrices. I focused on bicycles, computers, and video games.

  

From this initial assignment I chose to focus on bicycles for a more detailed matrix design project. This is the result of that effort. The matrix was used to inform the content map, which in turn was used to help design the system map. The end goal in all this is to have a rough concept (and perhaps a working prototype) of an application of some sort. My intention right now is to design an application that helps people who are completely clueless about bicycles learn more about them and what to look for when purchasing a new bike.

New Semester

This is my first post on my new blog for my new class in a new semester of my last year at IU. Future posts will occur weekly and will chronicle my efforts in this class over the next couple months.