Group 4 - Neighbouring App

Contextual Inquiry

Planning

1.Team rules

• Be responsive
• Listen to each other
• Vote to agree (if there was too many opinions)
• Be empathetic
• No meeting when not needed
• Do not interrupt
• Be productive and efficient!

2. Team culture

• Celebrate every success
• Treat yourself

3. Team Member Roles

• Luiza = Creative brains
• Melina = Efficiency Moderator
• Julia = Perfectionist
• Laura = Time Manager and Mood Moderator
• Daniela = Operational brains

4. 1st Meeting

Goal and Objectives of Contextual Inquiry

The Contextual Inquiry is aimed at expanding our knowledge on each of: (1) the User, and (2) the Application.

1. The User

• Understand the user interests regarding the main topic of the application.
• Understand the profiles of users who would use the application.(i.e identify target group)

2. The Application

• Identify and decide on possible functions the app would provide.
• Identify details relevant to the features and layout needed for the application such as color, display, general style, and other aesthetic aspects.

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Brainstorming Ideas for the App

During the first lessons of this discipline, we were asked to discuss what type of Application we would like to work on. In this sense, we needed to figure out the idea behind the app. All the members of our group had a lot of suggestions, but one idea stood out for everyone - an app about creating community, made for neighbours, that would stimulate them to get to know each other, have fun together and give and receive help on day to day activities.

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Goals of the App

1. To offer and ask for help within the neighbourhood

2. To reduce loneliness by allowing neighbours to meet and connect over events

3. To create a sense of community within the neighbourhood

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Description of the App

In a world where people tend to interact more with their phones than with other people, Neighbouring App aspires to build a sense of community, turning neighbours into people you can rely on. The app seeks to create relationships - by asking people to save a package for you, offering clothing items that you don’t use anymore, or just by getting together for a hike on a sunny morning.

Our app is about fighting urban loneliness with affection.

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Main Functions of the App

The Main functions of the Application are:

1. Creating online and offline events:

Neighbours could get together in person or schedule a fun activity to do online by creating various events.

2. Offering and receiving help from neighbours:

Neighbours could create a "Help a Neighbour" request so people within the neighbourhood could recognise their needs and decide whether to help or not.

How would these functions work?

We realised that in order for the app to reach its goals, we would have to connect people in the neighbourhood who have similar interests and that can help each other in some way. For that reason, we got inspiration from the Meetup App, and decided to ask the users about their hobbies or interests and ways in which they might be able to help their neighbours. This information is to be collected after the user creates an account and signs into the app for the first time. In this sense, the app would automatically provide a few options related to interests and offers for neighbourly help.

• Interests: as a basis for events: gaming, board games, cooking, sports/fitness, music (definition of genres), movies, hiking, tech, beauty, shopping.

• Offers for help: as a basis for help requests: pet care, plant care, home repairs, save your package, companionship/friendship, second hand items.

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Method: Survey

Survey Creation

The team followed the following steps in creating the survey:

• Agreeing on the goal and objective of survey
• Agreeing on Method (Online survey easier within the Covid/quarantine situation)
• Creating questionnaire
• Agreeing on the final questionnaires and on our target group
• Creating a consent note
• Agreeing on Google Forms as a tool to be used for online questionnaires
• Inserting questions and activating the survey

Survey Tool

The chosen survey tool was Google Forms since it is a free and simple tool which allows for co-editing effectively. This made creating the survey a quick and easy task since all team members could participate at the same time without having to be physically present in one location.

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Recruitment and Participants

• Agreed to ask friends who might use similar social apps and friends who do not use these apps at all.
• Each team member forwards the survey to at least 4 friends.
• Total sample: 40 Applicants

Results

The survey showed the following results:

The Majority of participants prefer to use the application on their phones, and the second majority would like to be able to use the application both on their phones and web.

Findings

The results helped to design observational interview guideline and identifying users for the interview.

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Observational Interview

Planning

• Choice of apps

• Bumble

• Meet up

• Joodle

Recruitment and Participants

• Find users who used similar apps such as Joodle, Bumble and Meet up.
• Preparation of logistics : schedule time, arrange zoom and have observation guideline sheet.
• Created an observation guideline sheet for focusing on right features to be evaluated.
• 3 Tasks were given to 5 different participants.

Observation

• Agree on finding 2-3 users per person

• Most users would be interviewed online but were able to observe 2 users physically

• Understanding how to formulate questions which can be asked or not(privacy respect)and also how to phrase them during an interview

• Undergo through the consent and flow of interview before starting

• Observe different tasks within the application and followed by some questions

• Understand purpose and important features within the app from a user perspective

• Document all observations and findings.

Here is the guideline that the team followed:

Observational Interview Guideline

 

Here are some of the screenshots that was observed while they perform :

A) Task 2 - Create an event:

 

B) Task 3 - Search for an event:

   

Results & Insights

• A better understanding of users/ people like and dislikes.

• Identifying some restrictions in some applications, which could be an advantage in our future app.

• Identified that the design of the interface such as colour, simpler fonts for users is also important.

• Identified also that some users might feel comfortable to use the app possible activities due to similarity

(since they all do not know anybody, hence all are open to get to know each other).

• Got advice on how icons can be simple to facilitate usability and recognition

• Also identified what feature might useful for app for large range of users such as anonymous

(hence people can write their feelings and thoughts..)

User Target Groups

Personas

Based on data collection

Slide show Personna based on Data collection

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Scenarios

Slide showing Scenario

Focus Groups

Purpose & Objectives

• Explore desired functions within the app's general topic

• Elaborate on these functions

• Understand the user needs to achieve the functions successfully

• Understand what would work and what would not work for potential user

• Explore the user's expectations on the processes of functions

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Participants

As participants for our Focus group we contacted different persons with the goal to recruit at least 5 participants. The idea was to make it as much confortable and clear as possible for the attendants and the observers. We also tried to recruit two more person as backup. As final constellation the participants were mixed group of men and females from Mauritius, Germany, Lebanon and Cambodia in the ages from 25 to 30 years old.

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Procedure & Activities

We explained the participants the process of the focus group through a PPT. Here some screenshots:

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  Slide showing ice breaking activity for participants in the Focus Group
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  Slide showing introduction to our app (the app still had the name Get Together)

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  Slide showing wish card activity introduction
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  Slide showing wish card activity results with star votes

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  Slide showing Method 3-6-5 activity introduction
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  Slide showing Method 3-6-5 activity table to be filled by participants

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Findings

General Learnings

To Keep

• Time management
• Short introduction of every participant, makes it more comfortable / familiar
• Flow and flow management ( having plan b, someone to share links,.etc)
• Little promise for incentive in the end
• Constellation of participants, e.g. mixed sex and origin
• Collecting feedbacks from participants
• Amount of participants
• Ideas from different perspectives
• It was direct and not too long. People respect the mute button, it’s not too many or too few people]]

To Improve

• We should have asked them if they already use a similar app, and if yes what they like and doesn't like
• Better preparation for the beginning
• More time ( may be have 2 focus group or 60 mins each instead of 45 mins for each activity squeeze)
• How to select participants- should be based on personna
• Could improve the presentation view( bigger fonts)
• Give time for participants to comment
• Have more icebreakers
• May be try focus group on weekdays according to participants feedback

Takeaways for Application

To Keep

• Recipe exchange- posting recipes and food pics - popular dish of neighbourhood
• Greater Focus on neighbourhood
• Filter options
• Details on where, how long, what...etc
• Online call for some activities
• Background information
• Profile : What are you good at?

Suggestions

• The name of Application
• Create communities for neighbourhoods
• Chat Tool - 1:1 and communities
• Use of icons
• Star review for example (beginner caretaker, professional hugger, best groomer), more features
• Video tutorial
• On several process on specific features
• Descriptions for `help option`

Using Heureustic Evaluation

Another group (5 experts) of the class test a similar App to ours, to check its usability.

Purpose and Objectives

• Let experts of usability to test the App MeetUp
• Let experts to compare the usability of the App with their knowledges in the topic
• To identify problems in the App MeetUp so we would avoid these in the development of our App
• Test usability heuristics, as: suitability for task, error for tolerance, etc...

Explanation of Product

We created a Google Slides document for the experts to have a quick overview of what the MeetUp App is about. For example, what its purposes is and other details including price and functions. Below is a screenshot of the slide:

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  Slide showing introduction of app

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Evaluation Criteria

For the evaluation we needed to choose some evaluation criteria. In our case we though the following were important to test the App MeetUp for further use in our research for the development of our App:

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  Slide showing heureustics evaluation criteria

This criteria was evaluated in a protocol sheet which included the following categories of priority: cosmetic (very low), minor (low), major (high) and disaster (urgent). Also the experts needed to clarify why they chose one of these options and suggest how the problem could be solved.

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Results

The results can led us realized which are the problems (violations of a heuristic) in the App, that need to be arranged. Next the results of the heuristic evaluation:

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  Slide showing introduction of app


Based on the table above, we could conclude that the heuristic suitability for task had a really big problem: "safety". The experts were corncerned that they might be possible fake profiles. This would be something, we will try to avoid for our App, so as suggested, an ID verirication could be implemented in this case. A major concern was the fee policy, so for our App, we will be clear from the beginning. Our business model will be Freemium (1st month free and then they would need to pay a monthly fee). The price would not change, even if our App becomes very famous.

Use Cases

The group created 3 Use Cases to test usability and check users perceptions and opinions from our App.


1) Setting up account

This is one of the most relevant steps on the process of being a user on Neighbouring App. It is where the user defines his/her interests for activities and in which ways he/she can provide help to the neighbours. When signing in, the app requires email and phone number - but the user could also sign in with a Facebook or Gmail account. Further obrigatory procedure would loading up a profile picture with good quality, confirmation that the user is not a robot and approving terms and conditions.

Use errors would happen in case the requested information is not provided correctly .




2) Create a cooking event

For this use case, the preconditions are the user's interest in cooking, having a recipe, ingredients and in case it is an online event, a video camera. Then, the user needs to activate the function "create an event", where he/she would have to define a title for the event (e.g. Chinese Dumpling Night), define date, time and location (wether it is online or offline), write a short description of what is going to happen, and finally determine a range of number of people who are welcome to join the event. After that, the app would give the user 2 options: to make it a public event, to invite specific connections or both. Once all the information is provided, the app shows a preview of everything with a "go back" option, in case there is any missing or wrong information. If it is not the case, the user goes forward with the preview and the event is activated.

Use errors would happen in case of incomplete information or if there is an technical problem where the app has problem sending invitations.





Requirements

Draft a table of requirements derived from your focus group and CI findings and your intelligent common sense.




Prototype

Prototype Planning

Tool

Adobe XD

• Adobe XD is a prototyping tool for web and mobile apps, by Adobe Inc.

Reasons for choice:

• Allows to create modern designs (which is preferred for the creation of a social app)
• Allows to create endless connections and prototype
• Seems not too difficult to learn
• Has Windows and MacOs versions (flexible to download for all teammates)
• Current free version includes:

(1) Unlimited designing and prototyping

(2) Unlimited editors, shared documents, and shared links until October 2020.

(3) Adobe Fonts free (limited set of fonts)

(4) 2GB of cloud storage




Prototype content

Based on the use cases, the general access that the prototype should provide was brainstormed and collected.

An example of that is the following:


Spreadsheet table showing Steps to Login and Create Profile

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Design and Creation

The creation of the application can be divided into two main parts: The creation of the App name and logo on one hand, and the creation of the Interface of the application on the other.

Name and Logo

• Name: The original name was `Get together app` but after the neighbouring element became salient in the app, we agreed to change the name into a self-explaining and straightforward title, namely ´Neighbouring´.
• Logo: The Logo created was aimed to be simple and straightforward. We drew samples by hand and then created some online.


Interface

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Final Product

Signing up

Profile

Neighbourhood

Search

Create event =

Simulation

We wanted to simulate a virtual cooking event, to test if it actually works and could be something feasable for people to do. In this way we could gather information through self-experimentation, one of the best ways to prove it.

Planning

To plan it, we realized that there are some things important when planning a cooking event:



The ingredients and recipe was very important to have it forehand, to buy the thing that we were missing.

Realization

After we plan the event we just needed to start cooking :) Each of us was on their own place and with their own utensils. So we began with the videocall, where Melina was guiding us through the process. We had a lot of fun and we were spending also quality time with our friends even if it was virtually. It was a whole new experience, which we really appreciate it!

Results

At the end we had 3 delicious typical Mauritian dishes:



Based on our experience we did an analysis and we came up with the following results:



Task Completion: all of us was able to achieve the task (cook the mauritian dish, through virtual guidance).

Time for task: it is important to consider that it might take longer as usual to cook the dish, because you are chatting and trying to guide others to cook a dish they have not done before.



Flow efficiency: sometimes internet was not good enough to have a good quality videocall, so we needed to send extra pictures from our process to verify if the cooking was going well (e.g. how to cut ingredients properly, texture of dish, etc..). We would like to have a function where the user can make screenshots while having the videocall, and these pictures will go automatically to the common chat.

Emotions, mood and satisfaction: we really enjoyed the moment and were really happy and satisifed with the results!

Results and Conclusions

General Results

• All 5 participants acted intuitively
• The Prototype is presentable
• Major concern: privacy (especially address and GPS location)
• Still lots of potential for improvement

Room for Improvement

Safety and Data Protection:

• Public profiles include name only; no family name.
• Clear explanation of what data will be shown to who (address).

App Functionality:

• Previously mentioned improvements (icons, info pop-ups..).
• Specific entries for creating different events.

Future Realisation Steps

• Update of data protection and clarification
• Development of profile creation step
• Creation of different events/help requests and test them
• Evolution of Chat channels
• Development of the Business Model (Freemium)

General Learnings

Difficulties

• Adobe XD learning
• Task allocation
• Team working skills ( especially in a virtual setting)

Takebacks

• Team roles (Extension of Strengths)
• Prioritization
• Different methods & tool usage (focus groups, use cases..etc)
• New ideas & Features from participants
• Agile Approaches: Work in increments
• How to focus on User opinions in most steps

Documentation