PARTOUT
Research
App design
I played a key role in developing a solution to raise CBR's low driving exam success rates. Through extensive research and many iterations I created a driving learning app.
The team got introduced to a task from a client “Partout” to come up with creative solutions for improving driving passing rates. The challenge was to come up with digital proof of concepts that can help teens get their drivers license faster and in the first try.
The first step into the project was to highlight the main problems that cause teenagers to fail their driving exams thus having to reschedule them and create bigger waiting lines. For that, the team came up with research questions and my job was to conduct a research on the topic of “How can we help exam takers pass their exams on the first try?”. Results gave a strong indication on anxiety and preparation being the key problems. Stress can reduce focus and affect decision-making skills, which are essential for passing a driving exam. Not being fully aware of your study progress and knowledge unproficiency also messes with your self-esteem resulting poor performance.
An important part of the process was analyzing the competition across different platforms and types of businesses. I looked into these three companies and wrote down the special features, methods that differentiate them across the market. These findings could bring the team a step closer to finding a good solution for our problem, while making sure it is relevant.
With the use of the surveys, interviews and library research, I have validated the assumptions I had on different facts about students and the reasons they fail both practical and theoretical exams. With the results we got it was clear that we need to work on a few things:
- prepare students better for the exams by using progress tracking
- give out tips and lessons on dealing with stress.
- set clear expectations for the final exams
It was important to agree on the target audience we as a team would create our work for. Our client provided us with the initial audience that I have finalized by using the findings of our own. I iterated the target personas by adding personal pain points and core needs that would have been logical based on team’s research.
After gathering enough initial insights it was time for ideation session of our own. I set up the board to brainstorm new ideas and solutions. Lotus blossom was the study used for finding wide range of topics and connecting different ideas that fit each topic. By the end of the session the decision was to look into study app creation with different features and visual branding.
The next step was to review what we got, research and visualize in our heads what might we create and how may it look and contribute to our concept. As the result we dropped some ideas, that didn’t fit and decided to focus on quality rather quantity.
I packed up all the ideas and listed down all the topics we wanted to be somehow integrated in our concepts. Our team had a discussion at the end of which we created a priority list of the features that the app will contain. It is crucial for the team to be on one page with the deliverables to know which tasks hold higher value to the end product. Using the Eisenhower matrix, we wrote down the features to their importance and urgency settings.
I have created a sitemap to get an overall overview of the apps pages and features included in them. The Home page contained study categories, scorecards with your progress, daily lessons/tips. There would also be an AR game/learning and account settings.
Midway through the project, we needed to create a concept document to validate our ideas with the client. I wrote down the problem statement, research findings and its content as well as the proposed solution with an early potential sitemap I made. My team helped link and refine the document, which we sent to Partout and got green light to start expanding the idea.
When the concept got approved, I took on the task of brainstorming design ideas and sketched them out on a board. There were still many questions to be solved, but this allowed me to get a foot into the action and already generate some ideas and layouts.
I combined ideas of my teammates with mine to create this initial wireframe. In order to make sure the product is easy to use and understand, me and a few teammates conducted usability tests with different people to learn, what struggles they had and what was clear.
With new feedback and knowledge available, I took on a task to redefine the sitemap I originally developed. The purpose of that was to fix all the layout errors and usability issues that appeared during testing of the wireframe. The new version of the sitemap has a smoother user-flow as well as an intuitive placement of sections. I made sure to write if an element is an icon or a section to make it easier to separate them.
While I was working on the design, my team got to a task of coming up with the name and a logo for the app. I had a chance to help them out a bit with my ideas. At the early stage we were researching some names that would fit the identity we want to portray. I came up with the name “Driven” as it is both driving related and is about a student being proactive and driven to learn, reach for his potential. My team loved this idea and we chose to stick with that. Later on I helped with ideating on logo variations, to get the process going. Later in the project the ideas were implemented and executed well by my team in the creation of the final logo.
With new sitemap and many new suggestions and feedback I created a new wireframe version. It now had intro pages that give an overview of the app’s top features; The home page contained the dashboard with a streak, a section to get back to the last viewed topics and a daily tip; The bottom navbar was iterated to have understandable icons; The streaks could be accessed from most pages, while being in the top bar, clicking would open an overlay showing more streak details and sharing options; Lessons would be scrollable cards that will take you 2-5 minutes to read and see the lesson’s content.
Closing to the final part of the design process, I filled in the prototype with images, text and colors. It looked good, but the colors just didn’t seem to suit it well, they looked more childish or more sports car like. I started working on adding different new pages like “share streak” page, while the team was figuring out the new color palette.
After thinking about it a bit more the team decided to change the colors for a more professional yet clean and fulfilling look, using dark green with a bright salad green as an accent color. I finished creating all the extra pages, iterated them and added the new colors to complete the design.
The deadline was closing so I set up all the interactions between the pages using Figma prototype settings. I made sure that wherever you go the page always communicates where you are and has a way to go back. The pages that weren’t necessary to create, where left blank with text explaining what is supposed to be there or what the action leads to.
“Creating a good concept proposal requires tremendous amount of research, testing, brainstorming and iterating. Keeping in mind the time limits our team had, I believe we did a great job building our product. This project was a valuable experience in both app design, research and team work. ”
I have already worked in a Sakura Creative team environment and knew our strengths and ways of operation. That is why it wasn’t a challenge setting up the team anymore because we didn’t need to start from scratch. What went well was the planning. We were on time with our timetable most of the time and communicated well on the tasks we have completed. I believe I got a huge chunk of work from the project to myself, which was hard to do but also totally worth it. I am happy that we managed to deliver such a tailored product at the end of the day. Credits to my team for great work.
The thing that we all failed at was colors. At the final presentation we got asked why we chose the color palette that had nothing to do with CBR or its brand, we explained that we communicated with the stakeholder about that asking for the CBR brandbook. The reply was that there wasn’t one ready, so we could try out new things ourselves. Apparently we thought it meant we can go all out and experiment with it, when it actually meant we could iterate things a bit. Even though the conversation with a stakeholder was in Dutch, nor I or other teammates have double-checked the message, which resulted in a late confusion
