Kristen BourgaultMarch 9, 2019#06492 APP

Project Case Study

The ChallengeOver a seven week period, the challenge was to develop a working prototype of an app experience for your home community. The town of Wallingford encompassed almost 40 square miles in Connecticut, with a population of around 45,000 people. Founded in 1670, Wallingford combines a charming historic feel with growing, modern businesses including breweries, vineyards, art studios and small theaters. The #06492 app is designed to provide practical functionality to town services and government, while creating an easy way to monitor town events, promote local parks, and build a sense of community amongst residents.

Purpose & FunctionThe #06492 app will perform four key functions:

1. Track and pay town utility and tax bills online2. Review agendas and meeting minutes from various town government groups3. Search for and save information about town events4. Locate parks with specific amenities and printable maps

Home

Log In

Register New User

My Property

Home

Electricity

View My Bill Pay My Bill

Payment Confirmation

Water

View My Bill Pay My Bill

Payment Confirmation

Property Tax

View My Bill Pay My Bill

Payment Confirmation

Building Permits

Request a Permit

Yard

Waste Collection

Livestock Permits

Request a Permit

Building Permits

Request a Permit

Vehicles

View Vehicle Tax

Pay Vehicle Tax

Payment Confirmation

My Gov

Mayor

About

Contact

Town Council

Members

Contact

Meetings

Upcoming

Agenda

Past

Meeting Minutes

Board of Education

Contact Members

Meetings

My Parks

Search for Parks

Parks with Courts

Parks with Fields

Parks with Dogs

Park with Water

Parks with Playgrounds

Parks with Trails

My Community

My Saved Events

Upcoming Events

Events Calendar

Search for Events

Information Architecture

Designing for the End UserTo better understand the needs of the users, provisional personas were created, describing how different individuals in town might use the app. Due to the abbreviated timeline for the development of this project, the personas were imagined and not based on research. However, these personas were useful in developing user stories and user flows, which helped envision how a person might move through the app experience.

Stanley Weekes“As a lifelong resident of sixty-eight years, I want to stay active in my community by regularly attending town meetings to voice my opinion on new projects, proposed legislation, budget decisions, business planning and town events. “

Stanley Weekes wants to print the agenda for the next Town Council meeting.

Opens #06492

Date?

Views homepage

Clicks Town Meetings

3/4/19

2/4/19

1/7/19 Print?

Y

N

Sends to Printer

Clicks My Gov

Clicks Town

Council

Aubrey Rowan “As a busy professional and homeowner, I need to quickly pay my bills each month, especially my town utilities including electricity and water.”

Aubrey Rowan needs to pay her electricity bill.

Opens #06492

Are you a registered

user?

Clicks Log In

Y

N Create New Account

Sign In My Property

Water

Home

Tax

View or Pay?

ConfirmationView

ElectricWhich Bill? Pay

Stacey McNand“As a local business owner, it’s essential that I stay engaged in the community by participating in annual events and celebrations to promote visibility of my business and attract new customers.”

Stacey wants her local business to participate in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Opens #06492

Locate events?

Views homepage

Clicks My Community

YAdd to

favorites?

Calendar

Upcoming Events Search

Event is saved in favorites

list

Selects Parade

N

Julie Hernandez“As a prospective resident, I am interested in exploring the town’s parks and playgrounds to see if they will be suitable for my growing family.”

Julie Hernandez is looking for information on local parks with playgrounds.

Opens #06492

Type of Park?

Views homepage My Parks

List of parks with

playgroundsPlaygrounds

With Hiking

For Dogs

Testing With PaperApproximately 30 paper prototypes were created, showing different screens within the app. The prototypes focused on the process that a user would take to complete the tasks born from the user flows. The prototypes tried to answer three questions for the viewer: Where am I? Where can I go from here? What can I do once I get there? The prototypes were created using paper and pencil, darkened with Micron markers, and colored with highlighter to reinforce the top level of navigation.

Maintain Your Property & Pay Your Bills

Stay Involved With Local Issues

Attend Community Events

Explore Parks, Trails, and Playgrounds

In the next phase, the app was tested with five users over a period of three days. Users were selected from two primary age groups, 30-40 and 60-70. Three women and two men were tested. Users are members of the Wallingford community. All users have children, two users also have grandchildren. One is currently retired, one is employed part-time, two are employed full-time, and one is a stay at home mother. Four users are homeowners while one rents an apartment. Three users were tested on the paper prototypes, while two were tested using the Marvel app.

TEST 1ManualPaper

AustinM, 39

TEST 2ManualPaper

DanM, 64

TEST 3ManualPaper

MonicaF, 62

TEST 4Clickable

POP

StephF, 36

TEST 5Clickable

POP

KiraF, 37

Conducting Usability Tests for Authentic Feedback

Testing for Usability on Five Tasks

Usability Test Tasks

1. Create an account and sign in to the app2. Pay your electric bill3. Print the agenda for the next Town Council Meeting4. Add the St. Patrick’s Day Parade to your saved events5. Print the map of a park with a playground

The users were asked to complete five different tasks in order to gauge the functionality of the design of the application. All users were able to complete all five tasks. A significant amount of feedback was collected. The paper prototypes were updated after each test to reflect the suggested changes from each tester. Therefore each test was run using a new iteration of the app. The testing script is included on the following page.

Hello. My name is Kristen and I am currently developing an app for the town of Wallingford. The app is designed to help you stay informed about what is happening in our town and to build a sense of community. The app is currently in the design phase. I have created paper prototypes which show what the app will look like and how the navigation will function. This test is to determine whether the app is intuitive. You are not being judged during this process; rather I am judging the usability of the app.

This app is being designed for a class project, and I am just beginning to learn about app design. Therefore I ask that you be very open with your feedback – you will not offend me. I want to learn more about what people are looking for in the design of this app, so that I can become a better designer. I encourage you to speak openly and share your thinking out loud during this process, and I will be recording some of your comments in my notebook so that I can make changes to the design later.

I will ask you to complete five tasks using the app. I will not tell you what to do, but if you have questions you can ask. There are no wrong answers. When you interact with the app, I will then show you the next screen. If you need a break we can take one at any time. Thank you for your willingness to participate in this usability test and for providing honest feedback. The test should not take longer than twenty minutes.

Usability Testing Script

Summary of Usability Testing FeedbackAll test users responded positively to the app overall. However only the female users in the age range of 30-40 thought this would be an app that they would find useful. Based on feedback, the following changes will be made to the app:

• The home button, which appears in the top left hand corner, needs to be prominent and obvious. It also should only appear in that spot, and not in other spots on the page.

• The term “My Home” is confusing. One user did not know to go there at first for the Electric Bill sequence. Two other users indicated that the term was confusing because they consider “home” to be a home page, or the personal user’s page within the app, rather than home as in residence. Alternative names were suggested such as “My Utilities” or “My Bills”

• A back button should be added to some of the pages, particularly in the “My Parks” area• On pages displaying maps of the parks, a print button should be added.• The functionality of the “Pay My Bill” pages needs to be reworked. The drop down “Accounts” menu is

unclear, and should perhaps just have the space to enter credit card information for simplicity• The redesign of the Events page based on initial feedback from Tester 1 tested positively with Testers 2-5

Summary of ChangesSignificant changes were made to the app based on the usability testing, prior to developing the second round of prototypes, which were built in Photoshop and uploaded into the Marvel interactive environment.

• The “My Home” section was renamed “My Property”• Utility bill pay was streamlined, to request credit card information, rather than draw from saved accounts• Verification pages were added so that when an item is printed, the user receives a confirmation message• The “My Community” section was heavily revised to place a focus on town events. All other links were

removed (schools, library, parks and rec, YMCA) based on feedback from the testers in the primary user demographic. Those users felt that additional links were unnecessary, but that the events feature was really essential to the success of this app

• After testing various configurations of the “My Parks” landing page, it was simplified to include only the larger categories, and a search bar

• The ratings feature was removed from parks, as it was deemed unnecessary by testers• The ability to print maps of each park was incorporated

Medium Fidelity Prototypes

Pay utility bills through the My Property tools

Review waste collection info & submit permits

Stay current on decisions made at town meetings

Contact members of your town council

Peruse events using the calendar feature

Or search for specific events, save them for later

Explore local parks by browsing categories

Prototype Developed Using Marvel Apphttps://marvelapp.com/b49if34

Summary of LearningThroughout the process of conceptualizing an app using a design thinking approach, I was able to see the importance of clearly expressing your ideas in various visual formats, including concept maps, site maps, user flows, and paper prototypes. Observing the way in which well developed user stories can inform the information architecture of an app was incredibly valuable. Thinking through a list of tasks for users to test, and going through the process of actually testing out the ideas with real potential users was a powerful learning experience. The feedback from the test users was sometimes expected and other times unexpected. Overall the suggestions led to a far better design.

Just as valuable as learning the overall process, was learning to use old technology in new ways, and new technology in innovative ways. PowerPoint became my go-to tool, as I was familiar with its drawing and formatting functionality, and it helped me to get my ideas out more quickly than fussing with learning a new tool. However Marvel was by far my most exciting take away from this class. The simplicity of this tool is truly inspiring. I love that I was able to photograph hand drawn images and quickly add interactivity, to test out the functionality of my design. I again relied on a familiar tool, Photoshop, to design my medium fidelity prototypes. This took a significant amount of time, and it may have been better to explore some of the tools specifically designed for UI. However, overall I think it was a valuable experience to further my knowledge of a tool I use frequently. I am pleased with the final result. Uploading those carefully designed images into Marvel, and interacting with my app, was a rewarding experience. Overall I am taking many new and valuable skills from this class that I can apply to my future career in design and teaching.