Prototype 2 - Balsamiq Mockup

This prototype is developed by Balsamiq Mockup which supports simple visualization of our idea but equipped with everything in our design method. This tool is especially suitable for fast developing ideas.

       

     

 

Prototype 1 - Evolus Pencil

One of the tools used for creating the first high fidelity prototype was Evolus Pencil. The conclusion of the experience is that it was a very simple tool but had very limited features. You could not create any interactive features, it was basically just a tool to visualise your idea/design.

Menu for a new user

First page for a non-new user

Overview of your trip

2nd page

Layout when you fill in info

Detailed info about your trip

Seminar 2 - 6 thinking hats on prototype

White: What is it? what does it do?

Travel app for planning your trip and during your trip, with a focus on budget planning.

Yellow: best things about it?

Users give the budget and some additional requirements, the app makes a travel plan for the users which contains everything needed during the trip. You can also give your requirements (destination, time, activities) and the app wil calculate the budget based on your requirements.

Black: things to improve? things that could go wrong? things that might be complicated to implement? or to use?

improve:

Share the plan to friends;

be able to download the information and work as a guide especially when travelling without internet;

recommend the special current events happening in destination city;

navigation

Could go wrong: sometimes tourist need an alternative plan due to weather problem etc.;

fail to get the updated information about attractions and thus make a plan that can not be carried out;

Hard to implement: booking tickets of attractions or make reservation for hotels and taxi; give a plan B (give more suggestion of attractions is not a problem, but it’s hard to implement when it comes to add them into existing plan as an alternative)

green: alternatives, how could problematic issues be solved? alternatives that might pose solutions to potential problems

adding links to the official websites of attractions in order to update latest information about attractions.

Link to google map to implement navigation

Red: what do we feel about it? personal taste, opinions etc?

A big issue is limitation - which functions it should have because you maybe prefer to have all kind of functions in one app but then you might lose focus on the target group and it’s needs.

Blue: take notes

The Imageboard

Critique session 1 - 6 thinking hats

Poster: TravelThings

White (information): What do we know about the project? How much time do we have for the project? When can we meet? What are our skills in the group? What do we need to learn more about? Which tools or technology could we use? What do we know about the design context?

Some basic information about the features of the app is given: it should be able to locate your current position and give alternatives on possible attractions, restaurant,sightseeing etc. There are facts and reviews about the attractions. There is also a search button, where you can search on a specific country or city, in case you want to know in advance.

We have about 1 month for the project and we can meet whenever we don’t have classes.

Our skills:

Annie: Some understanding of interaction design and prototype tools

Tingye: have taken some course about App design during Bachelor’s study

Jing: collecting relative materials to create the main idea of the project and some basic knowledge about procedure of interaction design.

We need to know more about what features does not already exists in other similar travel applications and if possible have functions that are valuable to the users but not implemented in other apps.

Tool or technology: use Axure or other applications to make prototypes; PR for video clipping;

Yellow (positive): What do we like most about this challenge? Opportunities? What are the strengths in our group?

Traveling is a hot issue that almost everyone is willing to have a good experience with it. We are interested in traveling as well and would motivate ourselves to take this challenge. A good application about traveling which contains a lot of necessary information would attract a variety of users to use it which is our opportunity. The strength of the group is that everyone has different background and strengths, which creates a broad area of competences.

Black (risks): What potential challenges do we see? What could possibly go wrong? What are the weaknesses in the group?

There are so many existing applications about travel, it might be difficult to make a plan since we don’t want it to be the same as others. Time is always an issue and risk in projects, so missing the deadline or not being able to achieve the initial idea is a risk.

Green (alternatives): What different types of directions do we see in the project? What is the wildest idea we can come up with? Variations of those ideas?

A travel application can either help one to book flights and hotels, arrange routes, give recommendations about restaurants and museums and so on. The variations of functions/features in the app is many. 

Red (emotions): What are our general gut feelings so far? What do we feel most excited about? What types of aspects do we like to focus most on? What seems easy/difficult?

The general feeling is that it will be fun to design this app because it is about an area that we are all interested in. We are excited about putting our ideas of the app in the design/sketches. We would like to focus on having features that can help tourists/users make their journey easier and have features that no other app have. 

Blue (meta): Summarise main points so far. Write down conclusions and action points. Discuss how to structure the work in this project, based on the above insights. Continue to fill out more under each point if you have time left.

To structure this project, we can take advantage of the instructions given for each critique session and seminar. Besides the features that was given in poster, a feature that we would like to focus on at this stage is budget, e.g

• calculate budget based on your travel plans
• help you plan your journey with a given budget