The Story: MiHabitat
My first concept project was to create an iPhone app for Jessica Huffman. It took 84 hours to have it complete. My role was to conduct the necessary qualitative research and a sketched clickable prototype. I had to solve her problem by identifying her needs, the opportunity it would create and making her have a simple and effective experience.
The Process
The ideation process started with an interview with Jessica, followed by subsequent interviews. It help me understand her better and get to know her natural environment. I noticed that she was very excited about the whole situation that she was in but at the same time I realized that she had this positive attitude about her miserable experience.
I reiterated the interview and its contents. It really helped me understand the state of mind Jessica was going through. The deeper I was getting into my qualitative research, the deeper I became immersed in her and the findings that followed. I developed a hypothesis and laid out the pain points which helped me identify her goals and need.
The Challenge
Identifying the cause of the problem was not the challenge. Coming out with a solution was not a solution for me either. I knew what needed to be addressed after conducting the task analysis. The idea was to develop an app that will provide a solution for Jessica in terms of her communication, delegation with her housemates and ultimately to be conflict free. I searched thoroughly for an app with functions that could serve her needs or relieve her of the pain points but they all seemed to be more of an organizer than an effective communicator with the task management capabilities. I managed to find Hearth which was quite close to what I had in mind. Now the fact of having an existing app was a big challenge. Hence, executing the figment of my creativity was the real challenge. I explored the app in the most crucial way to eliminate all other possibilities that do not serve or focus on Jessica’s needs. This was the most challenging part for me as I had a list of features that I wanted to explore within.
The Revelation
I also considered the fact that the existing app was fairly new and it had a lot of glitches. I then decided to do a competitive and comparative analysis. I explored Hearth thoroughly and then I drew my focus on reinventing and redesigning its idea with a professional task management capability. This led to designing MiHabitat. It was to introduce three other important features such as a direct communication tool, syncing a payment method and a task monitoring system.
The Vision
MiHabitat was created to organize responsibilities and to communicate effectively among housemates without having any conflict. It was clear Jessica’s main objective was to have each and every housemate take responsibility. This was important to address as to not impose any authority on anyone especially, for the primary user. If this was done, it would already create a sense of discomfort among the housemates hence, the focus was on four primary functions of the product.
1. Chat for communication.
2. Routine for delegation.
3. Shopping for accomplishment.
4. Bills to empower control and authority.
The use of these primary functions were supposed to be fluid and clean without having to navigate through too many screens or menus. I wanted to expose a minimalistic approach on the overall navigation and functions thus, primarily focussing on the unchallenging use of the app.
The Oversight
Although, the capabilities of each function addresses the needs of Jessica to achieve her goals, the sketches of each screen only illustrate the primary functions. The moment I laid out the user flow, I realized that the scope of each function seemed to be more challenging. I did keep in mind the consistency of features from one screen to another but little thought had been put into how that will function in a final product. This will be my next objective.
The Refinement
My next step on this would be to work towards simplifying the four primary functions and to make the app as user friendly as possible and less complicated. Additionally, I would like to break down each detail component in their respective categories.
