Go&Work
Design Sprint
The First Day - Identify My Persona, as well as Frustrations My Persona Has, and Come Up With a Solution (a Map)
Persona
Nina
32 y.o.
Freelance Copywriter
Boston, MA
Behavior
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Nina works from home when she can but spends at least 3 days a week traveling around the city for client meetings, and remote work
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Nina often has a few hours between meetings and tries to find places where she can sit down and get some work done, or take a phone call
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Nina isn't always familiar with the part of the city she is in, so she spends a lot of time looking for a good place to "post up" and do some work
Frustrations
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Nina often spends more time looking for a place to work than actually working! She sees it as a big waste of time, and it can be very stressful if she has work she needs to get done
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Nina will find a place to work and settle in, only to realize there's no reliable WiFi signal, no restrooms, or that she needs to spend money to stay there. She either has to go with it, or spend more time packing up and finding a new place
​​With the help of the persona, I noticed that some crucial features need to be included:
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Firstly, a map where the persona could see all the places around her and how far they are located
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Secondly, she emphasized that pictures of places were important (especially photos that show how spacious a place is)
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Thirdly, it was essential for the persona to understand the busyness of the place as she doesn’t want to waste her time on going to a place where she won’t be able to find a chair to sit on
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Fourthly, lots of reviews about how comfortable a place is could make it easier to choose the best place to go with for Nina
The Map
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I created a map where Nina could open a virtual map, tap on a place nearby, check all photos, check the busyness of the place, check reviews, and then it would be easier for Nina to decide if the place was worth going to. After making a decision to go to the place, she could click on a “directions” button. After arriving at the place, she could click on an “arrived” button.
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Additionally, after checking all the interviews for the second time, I wanted to somehow add one solution to a problem that was mentioned in the very first interview (where the interviewee said: “...if I don’t have to buy something to get a password, that’s even better.”)
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The main reason for stopping by this problem was that I had myself a bad experience with those restrooms that needed passwords. So, I was thinking about how to solve the problem and came across a good solution. The solution required some homework to be done as I wanted to include in the app the only places that were free of any restrooms’ passwords.
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And finally, I was thinking about the same comment that the first interviewee said and also added a tiny appreciation in the form of a discount (as sometimes, if you are a freelancer without a fixed income, buying every day a cup of coffee could be pricy with all of the worldwide inflation). So, I resolved the problem by creating a flow where every time a user uses the Go&Work app, the user could get 5% off the purchase. It would be beneficial for a user, and also, every place the app would promote could have some benefits in increasing the number of their customers.
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The Second Day - Get Inspired by other apps and get started with Sketching my big idea
The Lighting Demo
I, unfortunately, didn’t find any similar app to what I’m working on. Hence, I decided to look at apps like Google Maps (where I found inspiration for some steps for some of my flows) and Yelp (where I really like that when you click on a place you want to go to, the app gives you lots of similar options around and also Yelp has kinda similar features as Google Maps, so I took a look at them as well).
Crazy 8s
As I mentioned before, I tried to imitate here something like Google Maps’ flow (a finding-a-place-to-go-to flow). Also, the first page I sketched was just to show an image that complimented the app's name, which was included in the sign-up/log-in flow.
Solution Sketch
The Third Day - Creating the Story Board in order to get a better understanding of what my high-fidelity will look like
During the third day of the design challenge, I noticed that I was mostly copying Google Maps’ flow in the beginning, but with a Story Board step, I added some features like on my 2, 3, 6, and 7 screens which I think appeared to be more user-friendly.
The Fourth Day - Working on High-Fidelity Screens for the First Round of Testing
I was trying to use the startup's color palette I was creating a prototype for. Also, I added a couple of screens to show sign-up and log-in flows so that my prototype looked more complete.
The Fifth Day - Testing the High-Fidelity Screens with Five Participants
I interviewed five users (Maxim, Aidyn, Madina, Dasha, and Natalia). Maxim, Aidyn, Madina, and Natalia work remotely, so they were very excited about the app we were testing. Dasha works in an office, but she always has some clients to meet in different locations of the city she lives in. Hence, she was very interested in the appearance of such an app in her country.
At the interviews, I discovered that It was important to include a phone call button if a user decided to call a place he/she/they wanted to go to and ask, for example, about open hours on holidays (as usually, open hours on weekdays are different from weekends ones). Another feedback I had was making the part written about working time for every day of the week.
Another note I had was about making a place where a user could type specific characteristics of a place he/she/they wanted to go to.
And the last discovery I had was about resolving a problem where a user came to a place and had no spot to sit in. So, I got a very good idea to have a feature where a user could book a table in a place he/she/they wanted to go to.
The Edited Version of the Prototype
The Wrap Up
Throughout the process, which ended with creating the prototype, I had my persona (Nina) in mind. I hope during the five days of the design sprint I had, I came up with a solution that eliminated and even vanished the complication that Nina had.
Additionally, in my opinion, another round of testing could be beneficial, and also, more time is needed to be spent in order to make a UI part of the prototype ready for the developing stage.