Mthrift
Michigan student-focused app emphasizing security, efficiency, personalization, and user-friendliness.
Project Context
Background
As a design lead at Void Tech, a Michigan student-led organization, I oversaw, taught, and directed my team through the UX design process. I also communicated with the development team in order to ensure effective collaboration and successful implementation of our design solutions.
Role
Design Lead
Team
Tiffany Cheng, Michael Bacol,
Aishani Agrawal, Nadia Malik
Timeline
Sept 2022 - May 2023
Overview
Problem
Michigan students lack an all-in-one platform for buying, selling, and browsing items.
Solution
Mobile app with secure community, verified users, smart recommendations, casual interface.
Design Process
Final Product
Interactive Prototype
Brainstorm
Competitor Differentiation
Alternatives to a buying and selling app exist, but they have many flaws that we were hoping to address with our solution.
Features and Functionality
Through a collaborative brainstorming session with both designers and developers, we created a wide range of ideas for the app's features. We aimed to strike a balance between creating a great user experience and the practical aspects of technical feasibility.
The User
User Interviews
We conducted interviews with a variety of students to better understand our target user’s needs and possible pain points. Because our app would only be available to Michigan students, it was important to guide our design decisions through their experiences and preferences.
Some takeaways:
User Personas
We created a persona based on a real-life student to represent the target population of University of Michigan students.
User Flow Chart
We created a flow chart to visually map out the user journey and predict the different interactions that would occur.
Design
Sketches
In order to brainstorm design ideas, we each individually came up with sketches for what we felt some of the screens should look like and took aspects from each.
Low-Fidelity Frames
We moved to figma and transferred the sketches into low fidelity frames and created screens based on our user flow chart.
Final Frames
We created a high fidelity prototype to hand over to the developers so that they can start on making the app fully functional.
Feedback
Usability Testing
After our initial prototype, we made sure to test our prototype with real potential users. This allowed us to evaluate the current state of our designs and gain valuable feedback. We were able to identify pain points and areas of confusion that we could address with new iterations.
Cooperation with Developers
As the design lead, it was my job to stand by and answer any questions or concerns that the developers had with our prototype. There were instances where some of our designs weren’t technically feasible or would be hard to implement, so we changed the prototype accordingly to account for this.
Reflection
Key Takeaways
In my first design lead role, I learned that communication is extremely important for keeping a team engaged. Early on, there was a lack of structure in our communication processes, which resulted in several challenges. It became apparent that clear and consistent communication was essential to align the team's efforts and maintain a high level of motivation. Additionally, assigning defined roles and responsibilities to different members proved to be a great way to deliver work on time and keep everyone involved. Lastly, I recognized the importance of the connection between front-end and back-end because it directly influences the user experience and overall functionality of the app.