This January, I participated in a week long intensive bootcamp through Harvard's Design Agency, DEV, and learned about the design process from problem statement to prototyping. While the problem solutions were developed in teams with 3 people, I worked with our teams product after the bootcamp to come up with the design you see here.
Problem: Communicating between family members
Insights from Research: Over 50% of people surveyed are currently less than satisfied with the level of communication that they have with their immediate and extended family
Problem Statement: How might we improve satisfaction and degree of connection between emerging adults (18-29 year olds) and their families despite varying needs and preferences in style of communication?
Solution: A chat style app "Company" that allows you to easily find out when your family members have free time in addition to a "live" camera view option so that family members can experience what you're experiencing in the moment through the lens of a fit bit style camera.
Company Continued: While the bootcamp was only a week long, I was not entirely satisfied with the final product and have since spent weeks working to make sure affordances and other design elements were represented in the product.
Read on to hear the story of Company!
The Process:
Initial Wireframing and Prototyping:
This was the prototype that our team presented on the last day of the bootcamp. The other two members of my team were freshmen at the college, and thus their design ideas were a bit different from what I had in mind. Working in a team was a great experience that taught me to truly listen to others ideas and take feedback seriously. Although I was pleased with our product, we had so little time to really refine it so I then went on to make several more iterations after the bootcamp was completed that you will see below.
Edited Final Prototype:
The homepage of the app would be similar to iMessage for ease of communication. One component that sets it apart from regular messaging apps however, is the pink ring around certain people's icons. The pink ring, no matter what page one is on in the app, allows users to quickly and easily see who is currently online on the app.
The navigation menu can be accessed from any page via the hamburger menu. The navigation menu is designed with large icons and simple text in order to appeal to older generations who might be using the app. From the navigation bar, one can easily access the calendar page which displays when family members are available on a given day. The app will automatically open to the schedules for the current day, but one can easily switch dates by clicking on the calendar icon in the top right corner of the calendar page. The blue highlighted section allows for family members to easily see when all of their family members are free on a given day, and if there is free time for all on a given day that will be represented by a highlighted blue day on the month calendar as well. For ease of use, one would be able to sync their Company calendar with their Google Calendar, and since the Company app is only concerned with times that people are free, it is less invasive than just sharing one's whole Google Calendar with a family member. There is an option to manually input free time as well directly in the app.
Additionally, on any page in the application, one can click on the heart with their photo in the right hand corner of the navigation bar to quickly see who is online and chat individually from there.
The last feature that sets Company apart is the "live" feature. By clicking on the video camera icon, one can see who in their family is currently streaming an experience and watch it with them. This allows family members who are not physically together to still feel like they are sharing experiences.
