Husky Mapp

Developing an entire system was not easy, but we had to have a base idea of what we wanted our application to do. We wanted to minimize our functions so having four main features such as "System Preferences", "Search", "Report" and "Explore", would allow the app to be functional but not overwhelming to users. Our Information Architecture changed as we continued in our design process. We added a "Friends" feature because we realized that students wanted to have a community option. We also ended up changing how the Calendar feature flowed based off our paper prototype. This information Architecture provided us with a base of important features we wanted to include.

1. Issue: Drop-Down Menu Icon Clarity
When users were looking at the dropdown menu functions and options – a personal icon and a community icon – they were confused about what the icons meant or where which would lead them to the Calendar feature. Developing clear icons and creating an intuitive dropdown menu was a priority for our design.
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2. Calendar Function & Purpose
Our participants retroactively reacted to the calendar function with confusion. They knew they had completed the task, but they were confused about the purpose of the calendar on the map navigation application. Including a calendar function would inherently imply that our users can add and delete events from their calendar. Our application would need to completely emulate the functions of a calendar like Google Calendar.  Moving forward and taking our findings into account, we will implement our calendars solely to be viewed. To make this experience even more clear, our application will explain the functions and purposes of syncing their maps to this application.
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3. Tutorial Design
‍Some of our participants read through each and every pop-up from our tutorial. One of the participants wanted to control the time function of our tutorial – to dismiss the instructions at their own time. We found that the tutorial is meant to help users, and it essentially serves as a tool to help the users, so it should cater to that fully.  To fix this problem, we want to create a page where users can choose whether they want to explore the animation tutorial.

It was time to put our application to the test, using paper. In order to conduct a usability test, we had to create paper prototypes to test three features of our system. We conducted our first round of usability tests in class with other groups and took feedback from those usability tests to change our paper prototypes for our second round of usability tests. We wanted our users to perform the following functions:
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1. Create an account and then sync your Calendar
2. Report a Construction Incident
3. Find a Coffee Shop without using “Search”

After evaluating our paper prototype, our team had difficulty deciding how to implement the calendar feature and making it intuitive while also deciding to include a community feature. We did not want to have too much going on within our app, so we decided to compromise and add both features, but make them secondary features. After going back to the beginning, referencing our personas and design Information Architecture, we needed to address the need of efficiency and navigating around campus. The calendar feature would give users the option to manage their schedule through the app, and the community feature would give uses the options to find their friends, but they were not the main functionalities of the app. This was a good middle ground as it did not take away from the general purpose of the app, but added some extra features that a user may want to use.

After making our changes, we finally were ready to develop wireframes for the full system of the app, going beyond the scenarios we did in our paper prototype. The wireframes show the functionality of our system and provide a visual representation of the Information Architecture. View all annotated wireframes.