Chapter 1: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

In this chapter, Don Norman talks about the most important characteristics of good design which are discoverability and understanding.

Discoverability — Is it possible for users to figure out what the possible actions are to use that product?.

Understandability — Is it possible[easy] for users to figure out how the product can be used, is the language clear enough?

An example is a door; a door handle helps a user “discover” what action is possible, while a pull or push sign helps the user “understand” what to do with that door handle, which direction the user should push or pull it.

Good design requires good communication

Discoverability results from the application of 5 fundamental psychological concepts which are Affordances, Signifiers, Constraints, Mappings, Feedback, Conceptual Model[Mental Model]

Affordances

Affordances are the possible actions a person can perform with a particular object/product. For example, a chair affords sitting. If an affordance cannot be easily perceived by a user, a means of signaling it’s presence is required. Affordances determine what actions are possible.

Signifiers.

Signifiers help users know what affordances a product has and how to use them. They are used when a product’s affordances are not easily perceived. Signifiers are signals. Some signifiers are signs, labels that tell the users what to do.

Constraints.

Limitations in application or use that can help with the formation of conceptual models. This will be explained further in chapter 4.

Mappings.

It is the relationship between the elements of two sets of things. The relationship between a control and it’s results are easiest to understand when there is an understandable mapping between the control and it’s results. Controls should be close to the items been controlled. For example, light switches in hall are usually arranged in such a way that a user will immediately know which switch controls which light.

Feedback.

It’s important designers communicate the results of an action. Feedback when an action is performed must be immediate and informative. Delayed feedback can be disconcerting and lead to user abandonment or failure. Too much feedback can be annoying and irritating to users. Too little feedback can be as useless as no feedback at all. Feedback also needs to be prioritized (important messages/alerts vs. unimportant). Poor feedback can be worse than no feedback at all, because it is distracting, uninformative, and in many cases irritating an anxiety provoking.

Conceptual Models.

Conceptual models/Mental models are the understanding in the minds of users of how certain products work. In our daily life, we create a conceptual or mental model about everything we interact with. We use that knowledge while interacting with new things.

The Paradox of technology

Over the period of time technology is bringing changes and innovations to make our life easier. Devices are getting complicated as they are stacked with lots of options. The main challenge for designers is to bring the same technology that simplifies life by providing more functions in each device.

Chapter 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions

When people use a thing — product, tool or service — they face two gulfs (obstacles) between desired outcome (goal) and available options (what actions to perform). The first gulf is called the gulf of execution(how it operates)and the second gulf is called the gulf of evaluation(how it happened). The role of the designer is to help people bridge the two gulfs. Feedback and good conceptual model help bridge the Gulf of Evaluation.

Human Thought: Mostly Subconscious

Conscious attention is needed to learn new things. But when users repeatedly perform tasks/actions over a period of time, they perform those same actions subconsciously.

There are 3 levels of processing that goes on in the human brain; Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective.

Visceral

This is the most basic level of processing. It allows us make quick judgments(responses) about the environment subconsciously without conscious awareness. Visceral responses are fast and automatic. Great designers use aesthetic sensibilities to drive visceral responses. For designers, the visceral response is about immediate perception.
This has nothing to do with how usable, effective, or understandable the product is. It is all about attraction and repulsion. Great designers use their aesthetic sensibilities to drive these visceral responses.

Behavioral

It is the home of learned skills, triggered by situations that match the appropriate patterns. Actions/Analysis at this level is largely subconscious.

For designers, the most critical aspect of the behavioral level is that every action is associated with an expectation.
The information in the feedback loop of evaluation confirms or disconfirms the expectations, resulting in satisfaction or relief, disappointment, or frustration.

Feedback is critical to managing expectations, and good design provides this.

Reflective

Home of conscious cognition. This is where deep understanding develops, where reasoning and conscious decision-making take place. Reflection is cognitive, deep, and slow. It often occurs after the events have happened.

It is a reflection that drives us to recommend a product, to recommend that others use it — or perhaps to avoid it.

Design must take place at all levels of processing. Understanding arises at a combination of the behavioral and reflective levels. Enjoyment requires all three.

Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World

In this chapter, Don Norman explains further how mental models[knowledge in the head] helps users interact with a product. Knowledge exists in both the head and the world.

Head: Person knows/remembers how to do a thing.

World: Person can derive how to perform a task from things and the environment.

Not all knowledge required for precise behavior has to be in the head. It can be distributed — partly in the head, partly in the world, and partly in the constraints of the world.

Precise behavior can emerge from imprecise knowledge for four reasons:

1. Knowledge is both in the head and in the world. Behaviour is determined by combining the knowledge in the head with that in the world.
2. Great precision is not required. Perfect behaviour results if the combined knowledge in the head and in the world is sufficient to distinguish an appropriate choice from all others.
3. Natural constraints exist in the world. Each object has physical features that limits its relationship with other objects, the operations that can be performed on it, and so on.
4. Knowledge of cultural constraints and convention exists in the head.

“Whenever knowledge needed to do a task is readily available in the world, the need for us to learn it diminishes.”

Example: We don’t memorize phone numbers as readily in the smartphone era.

There are two types of knowledge;

Declarative knowledge (“knowledge of”)

• Knowledge of facts and rules.
• Easy to write down and teach.
• Example: New York is east of Chicago.

Procedural knowledge (“knowledge of how”)

• Knowledge that enables a person to perform music, return a serve in tennis and move the mouth/tongue properly when saying a tongue twister.
• Procedural knowledge is taught by demonstration and learned through practice.
• Procedural knowledge is largely subconscious.

Knowledge in the world is usually easy to come by. Signifiers, physical constraints, and natural mappings are all perceivable cues that act as knowledge in the world.

Chapter 4: Knowing What to Do: Constraints, Discoverability, and Feedback

Knowledge in the world includes perceived affordances and signifiers, the mappings between the parts that appear to be controls or places to manipulate and the resulting actions, and the physical constraints that limit what can be done. Knowledge in the head includes conceptual models; cultural, semantic, and logical constraints on behavior; and analogies between the current situation and previous experiences with other situations.

Constraints are powerful clues, limiting the set of possible actions. The thoughtful use of constraints in design lets people readily determine the proper course of action, even in a novel situation. Constraints are used to limit the number of possible actions a user can perform with a product so as to reduce chances of errors occurring. There are 4 types of constraints;

Physical constraints

• Physical limitations that constrain the range of operations.
• Example: A square peg cannot be used with a round hole.

Cultural constraints

• Culturally accepted range of actions for a given situation.
• Example: Red as a the culturally accepted color for “stop.”
• Conventions are a kind of cultural constraint. For instance some cultures eat with forks, some with chopsticks and some with their hands.

Semantic constraints

• Rely on the meaning of a situation to control the range of actions.
• Example: A windshield is meant to block wind from a rider’s face and therefore must be placed in front of the rider.

Logical constraints

• Using reason to determine the range of actions.
• Example: Two switches to control two lights. Logically the left switch should operate the left light and the right-side switch the right light.

Legacy problems: Existing standards or ways of doing things that make change (innovation) difficult or problematic.

Chapter 5: Human Error? No, Bad Design

Don Norman in this chapter puts emphasis on the fact that when users make a mistake when using a product, it is never their fault and always the designer’s fault. He says “Learn to see human errors as design problems rather than human incompetence”

When users make mistakes using a product or when a product fails, designers should strive hard to determine what the cause is. Most errors are the cause of multiple failures. One of the methods we can use to determine what the underlying cause of failure is to make use of the “Root Cause Analysis” method.

Root Cause Analysis method tells us to ask the 5 Whys when searching for a reason. For example;

1. Why did the plane crash? (Because it was in an uncontrolled dive)
2. Why didn’t the pilot recover from the dive? (Because the pilot failed to initiate a timely recovery)
3. Why was that? (Because he might have been unconscious)
4. Why was that? (We don’t know. Need to find out).
5. Further inquiry as needed.

The lesson of the Five Whys is that we usually end our inquiry too soon.

“The tendency to stop seeking reasons as soon as a human error has been found is widespread.”

Designing for Error

• Understand the causes of error and design to minimize those causes.
• Do sensibility checks. Does the action pass the “common-sense”test?
• Make it possible to reverse actions — to “undo” them — or make it harder to do what cannot be reversed.
• Make it easier for people to discover the errors that do occur, and make them easier to correct.
• Don’t treat the action as an error; rather, try to help the person complete the action properly. Think of the action as an approximation to what is desired.

Novices are more likely to make mistakes than slips, whereas expects are more likely to make slips. Mistakes often arise from ambiguous or unclear information about the current state of a system, the lack of a good conceptual model, and inappropriate procedures.

Design Lessons from the Study of Errors

Adding constraints to block errors

• This can be done through clever use of shape and size

Undo

• Reversing the operations performed by the previous command, wherever possible.

Confirmation and Error Messages

• Prevent errors by requiring confirmation before a command will be executed, especially when the action will destroy something of importance.

Chapter 6: Design Thinking

In design, the secret to success is to understand what the real problem is. We often rush to solve a problem without questioning whether or not we are solving the right problem. HCD(Human Centered Design) is a procedure for addressing these requirements but with an emphasis on two things; solving the right problem and doing so in a way that meets human needs. HCD is an iterative problem solving process that designers use, it includes stages such as Observation(Research & Understanding of the problem), Idea generation, Prototyping and Testing.

Chapter 7: Design in the World of Business

When new technologies emerge, there is a temptation to develop new products immediately. How can businesses create innovative products that users will love without considering the users mental models. There are two forms of product innovation; Incremental Innovation(less glamorous, but most common) and Radical Innovation(most glamorous, but rarely successful). An example of radical innovation is Apple launching an all touchscreen smartphone in a time when phones still had physical keys. If done well, radical innovation can be successful.

Featuritis (aka “feature creep”) is a phenomenon whereby a successful product keeps adding new features and capabilities to the point that it overcomplicates and obfuscates what was once a simple, elegant, straight-forward solution. Reasons for this could be;

• Existing customers want more features, functionality and capabilities.
• Competing companies add new features that create pressures to match those offerings.
• Market is saturated or stagnant. Adding new enhancements will boost the upgrade cycle.

The lesson here for businesses is to focus on strengths of their products, not to follow their competitions blindly.

Design is successful only if the final product is successful — if people buy it, use it, and enjoy it, thus spreading the word. A design that people do not purchase is a failed design, no matter how great the design team might consider it.

Designers need to make things that satisfy people’s needs, in terms of function, in terms of being understandable and usable, and in terms of their ability to deliver emotional satisfaction, pride, and delight.

Designers will be more effective as they learn more about sales and marketing, and the financial parts of the business.

The principles of design are very important because they are the basic building blocks for every design project. I will be breaking down some of these principles below;

LINE.

“A line is a shape that connects two or more points together.”

A line can be used to direct a user’s eyes to a specific element in your design. It can also be used to separate different elements. It can be of different sizes, lengths, styles, and patterns.

SHAPES.

Any 2D area with a recognizable boundary is a shape. We can use shapes to make our designs more interesting. We can also use them to send a message; for example, when you see a heart shape, you know it means to love, caution or danger sign means you should be careful. Shapes can be either geometric[regular] or organic. Shapes can also be used to create images when mixed together. When shapes become 3D, we call them Forms. Forms bring realism in 2D design.

TEXTURE.

The texture is the physical quality of a visual element. It can be rough, smooth, etc. Texture adds a bit of depth to design. It gives your design more life rather than making it bland and ordinary. For example, if you were to design a flyer for a gardening company, it would make your design more interesting to add a bit of grass texture in the background, maybe with a section of it scraped off to illustrate to prospective customers just what the gardening company does and to make the flyer design more interesting.

BALANCE.

Balance is the equal distribution of visual weight. It helps your design look organized and presentable. It also shows attention to the detail of the designer. Balance makes design presentable.

TYPOGRAPHY.

Typography is the style with which text is presented. Designers pass a message to users using text and other elements. Texts can be of different sizes, weights, and styles. Fonts are of two types, Serif and Sans serif. Serif fonts have a serif, a small stroke at the end of the letters. Serif fonts have a more traditional look, so they are mainly used for print design[like flyers]. Sans serif fonts on the other hand are fonts that don't have a serif hence the sans name[sans means without serif]. Sans serif has a more modern and clean look, so they are used for web and mobile designs. Font choice depends on the type of project used. The font has to fit the message of the design. For example, wedding invitations usually have a more creative and decorative font used in the design, while a stop sign will have a more modern font that is not stylish so it is readable because of the tone of the message.

Display fonts such as All Caps, Blackletter, and Script are used for small amounts of texts because of their decorative style. Serif and Sans serif fonts can also be used together to create “contrast”. Serif fonts can be used for a title, heading, while sans serif fonts can be used for the body under the heading. A maximum of two fonts should be used for each design project, you don’t want to overwhelm your users/readers with two many fonts because it will make your design look a bit disorganized. The same font can also be used in different styles and weights to create contrast.

IMAGES.

Images can be used to send a message to your users without text. Images set the tone for your project. The images used in a design project have to match the message been passed across. They also have to be of high-quality or they end up ruin the design if it’s low quality. For example, flyer design for a pet shop should have high-quality images of the pets been sold and at the right angles to show the pets properly and not images of cars or of food.

COLORS.

This is one of my favorite elements of design because it can either make or break your design. Colors can be used to set a tone, designs about food, agriculture usually have a green or orange touch to it for example. Colors can also be used to separate different elements, evoke a certain emotion from users, and send a message. Color theory helps designers use colors the right way, especially when using more than one color on a design project. Another thing to note when using colors is color contrast, usage of two or more colors that don’t compliment. each other will ruin your design and throw off your users. Using two or more colors that don’t contrast properly makes for bad readability.

LAYOUT & COMPOSITION.

Layout&Composition is the way a design is presented, the structure of the design. The different elements in a design project have to be laid out properly, so it doesn’t look cramped up or disorganized. Things to consider when thinking about layout are as follows;

1. Proximity: The use of space to show the relationship between elements. like bullets points beside the text. The space between the bullet point and text is usually small to show that the bullet point is attached to the text.
2. White Space: White space also known as negative space[because it is not always white] adds a bit of breathing room to design elements so they don't look cramped up together and are easily distinguishable and readable. Too much negative space is also not good for design, so it’s essential to use the right amount. It can also be used to separate content.
3. Alignment: It is the structure with which a design is laid out. Without proper alignment, the different elements of the design will look like they were placed randomly without any consideration. Proper alignment shows attention to detail and makes for good readability.
4. Contrast: Contrast is used to differentiate elements. Color contrast is especially important when using two or more colors on a design to aid readability. Font contrast too also helps the users differentiate titles/headings from body text.
5. Repetition: Repetition in design is used to show consistency and to show emphasis. You can draw a user’s attention to an element by using repetition.

I hope with these points of mine, I have been able to convince you and not confuse you about the principles of design and why they are all important. Thank you.

Design is a process of offering solutions or a product/service to a particular set of people in a way they will understand and love it. I love how with design, you can create both physical and digital products that are immediately familiar to the people it was meant for so they can start to make use of it and enjoy using it. My journey into design started mid last year[June] at an internship that was originally meant to be a software development internship. I was introduced to design thinking and I fell in love immediately and haven’t looked back since. Since then, I have been reading design articles, watching youtube tutorials trying to get better every day [not every day, some days I didn’t do anything but play video games, rest is very important].

I joined WeJapa Internship because I want to get better at my craft and hone my skills. I especially want to get better at conducting User Research; asking the target users the right questions, proper research data analysis that will eventually inform my design decisions.

Design has to be backed by data, if not, you’re just designing in the dark

I hope that by the end of the WeJapa internship, I would have honed my skills as a product designer. I also hope to get a [remote] job through the WeJapa App which I have been approved on by the way. My design journey so far has been both an exciting and sometimes challenging journey, but I can’t see myself doing anything else at this point. I’m very excited about what the future holds and the many different ways I will be able to improve the user experience of everyday people through the different products I will help create with an amazing team and an amazing company.

Cheers to the Future

The task was to redesign a website or an app and do a proper case study for it. I chose Kuda Bank’s website as I felt they didn’t put enough effort into it has their main focus is their app.

The thought process behind the redesign.

Kuda bank is a digital bank, they have no physical branches. You can open an account and perform transactions, talk to a customer care representative using just the app which can be downloaded on any device(iOS and android). Their tag line is “ We are the bank of the free”, the free means most of the charges that traditional banks impose on their customers are free on Kuda bank, which is one of the incentives they are using to draw in customers to their service.

Sketches.

In the first section which is the header/hero section, readers should get an immediate idea of what the product/service is. On kuda’s current site, there’s a tag line which reads “We are the bank of the free” with a CTA underneath that reads “Get kuda” which leads to a new page where users can download for either iOS or android when clicked which I feel is bad UX and an iPhone illustration by the right. For my header redesign, I added both CTAs for the apple store and google store, so users immediately know that the Kuda app is available for both platforms and choose whichever one they use without having to go to another page.

The next section which is the main/body section on the current site shows Kuda bank highlight the benefits of banking with them and what fees users would normally get charged for on traditional banks that they will get for free using Kuda bank which is one of their main selling points. The way the benefits are highlighted on the site is not in an orderly way although I feel it was done on purpose, I decided to highlight the benefits users will get in a more detailed format for better readability.

Right below the benefits section is a step y step guide on how to sign up to kuda bank and start making use of the app, although it requires the user to click on each step, I felt it would be easier to just lay out the steps at a glance without needing the users to click on anything.

Next, I added a testimonial section to also serve as “social proof” to convince users that still had doubts about the authenticity of the product, so they would be fully convinced hearing from people who are currently using kuda bank.

Lastly, knowing users might still have some questions about kuda bank, I added a FAQ section that answers most of the questions the users might have. So they don’t have to reach out to the customer care people to answer basic questions they might have.

Lastly is the footer section. On the current site, the information on the bottom below the links does not look so good in terms of color contrast. Grey text does not look that readable on a white background. For this reason, I added a purple background which makes for a great color contrast with white text placed on it.

I have simplified everything on the page for users to easily navigate through the page. I believe the reading experience is better than the current website.

Visual Style.

Color.

Font.

Muli.

Tools Used.

Pen & Paper.

Figma.

Design a Wallet landing page that allows a user:

• Switch between his accounts
• See recent transactions sorted by recent Date
• See his Wallet Balance
• Know how to fund/top up his account
• Apply for loan
• Pay bills
• Allow user to request for a refund (this feature should not be too obvious but visible)
• Option to Save Card
• Link to refer a friend

Also, add a space for google ad as company ABC will like to advertise via the space.

I started out solving this task by conducting a research on apps that offer a service similar to this to give me a general idea and serve as a form of inspiration. I then decided to use the color blue as the primary color because blue represents trust. For an app that deals with money, the most important thing for users is security, they need to know they can put their money into the app and it will be secure. I then laid out the structure based on the features in the brief on paper and decided on how the features will connect.

This is the home screen I came up with

Here the users can see both accounts(Naira and Dollar) and their respective amounts. The plus icon on each account lets the users know they can add(topup) more money to the respective accounts.

I put the most important features of the app directly on the homescreen so the users don’t have to go through multiple screens to do different things. Most of what they need is right there at a glance once they open the app. Also, they are able to see their most recent transactions. The space for the google ad was also added directly on the homescreen so as to be able to reach the users as they open the app rather than put it on a separate screen which they might not interact with.

The next set of screens are the Top up, Pay bills and apply for loan screens

Researching on apps that offer a similar service, I was able to conclude that users are able to topup their wallets by using their debit cards which have been saved on the app or adding a new card and by bank transfer

They are a number of bills we pay here in Nigeria such as electricity(utility) bill, internet subscriptions, mobile data subscriptions, etc which led me to put them all on the pay bills screen, but I broke them down into their different categories.

Then the loan request page, the users are asked for the amount they want and the duration. Based on the process it takes to give a user a loan, I added a note to the users to let them know the loan process will take up to 6 hours as the information they will be asked to provide will have to be verified so they don’t get frustrated. It’s always good practice to let different processes take and why.

Since we were asked to add a feature that enables the users to request for a refund but not to make it too obvious, I decided to add it to the Profile settings page in the “Help & Support screen”. Also included in the Profile settings page is a tab named “Refer and Earn” which enables the users to share a link to friends and family to sign up on the app and also earn a small token on each successful sign up as an incentive to the users.

A digital product(app) that is empathy-driven in its design is the Spotify app. The choice to use dark mode helps users have less eye strain, save battery and use the app even in low light environments.

An example of a solution that is not empathy-driven in its design is the Dominos pizza website. Dominoes Pizza was recently sued by a blind man because their website is not accessible to blind people which is wrong.

Question 2.

A design challenge I have come across in my everyday life is designing an app for car owners here in Lagos to find available parking spaces and book them before they go out so as to reduce the time and effort they take in finding parking spaces when they get to their destinations and reduce traffic.

Plot.

Lagosians go out a lot, especially on weekends. They go out to parties, weddings, malls, etc. Those that have cars want to be able to go to a particular venue and find a suitable parking space preferably at the venue or close to it.

Character.

Vehicles owners in the city. Most of them are working-class people.

Theme.

I’m undertaking this project because this is one of the major challenges we face here in Lagos almost on a daily basis. It leads to stress, traffic, and take-ups much time in some cases because people have to drive down to another street to park and then walk back to their destination.

Dialogue.

“I hope I will see where to park when I get there”, “is there any parking space around there?”

Melody/Chorus.

How do I find out if a venue I’m going to has parking spaces and how can I book it before I get there?

Decor.

At home/Work. They could be anywhere, to be honest.

Spectacle.

Not sure this counts as a plot twist, but some vehicle owners use ride-hailing apps when going out sometimes just to avoid the stress of looking for a suitable parking space.

Design thinking is a method by which we come up with solutions to problems by approaching the problem from the users facing said problem’s point of view.

Implementing the Design Thinking process for a project

For example, if I wanted to design a period tracking app for women, I first will have to speak with different women to understand everything that has to do with womens’ periods and come up with a solution that addresses all their needs. If I decided to work on the app without doing any research with actual women, I would end up designing an app based off my own assumptions which would be wrong since I am a man and I have never had a period. Design thinking requires us to address a problem from the user’s point of view not ours, as we are not the users.

Objective

The task was to design a quiz feature on an educational app for teens to learn about any STEM subject in a fun way and to ensure my design focuses more on the experience users have while interacting with the quiz feature.

Design Process

My first step was to do an online in STEM education for Nigerian teens, I read about some of the steps schools and the government is trying to take in order to push STEM education into Nigerian school curriculums. I had a lot of questions I planned to ask my target market such as how many of them have phones? how do they access the internet? how else do they learn outside of the classroom? So I proceeded to conduct user interviews with some teen I was able to reach out to.

User Research

I did user research by conducting interviews with the help of one of my siblings who is a year 11 student of GreenSprings School, Lekki and some other teenagers at my church whom all teens in secondary school between the ages of 14–16years of age.

The questions I asked them were as follows;

1. Do you have a phone or tablet?
2. How do you access the internet?
3. Have you ever used a learning app before?
4. Does your school currently teach you any STEM courses?
5. Would you like to learn more about STEM courses through an app on your phone?
6. Are you interested in STEM subjects?
7. Do you like to study alone or do you prefer to study with friends?
8. What makes learning fun for you?

From the questions asked I was able to gather from that the students prefer when their learning is interactive, such as when an interactive board is used or when they are taught with video lessons, So I added video lessons to my designs. I also had to take into account the fact that the internet here in Nigeria is not always reliable, so there is an option for offline download of the video lessons.

The teenagers also said they enjoy studying together and doing their assignments together, so there is a feature on my app that allows them to view what their friends are learning and courses they have completed.

The students like when they are praised when they perform well, so I added a feature on the app where they receive badges of completion when they complete the quizzes to serve as a form of encouragement.

User Personas

From my research, I was able to come up with two personas;

User Flow

User flow/journey is a good way of describing the sequence of steps users take to access a function or perform a task in an app.

Sketches

Now that we understand who this application is for and what we want to achieve with it, my task was to design an education app with an emphasis on the quiz section to make learning fun for teens. There are a lot of educational apps out there for learning such as Codecademy Go, Udemy and Coursera. I took a brief look at a few of them for inspiration purposes. I then began to sketch my ideas. Here are a few samples below

Visual Design

The idea for the visual design is an aesthetically pleasing yet simple concept with minimal distractions to maximize user experience.

From the responses I got from the interview, I made the following design choices.

I included a screen in the walkthrough when you open the app that says girls are just as smart as boys. I wanted it to serve as a form of encouragement for the girls so they can know it’s something they can do since most of them felt STEM courses were majorly a ‘Boys thing’

Most of the students said they prefered to study together so I included a feature on the app that lets them see what their friends are learning and the quizzes they’ve completed.

To make the learning fun for them. I included a feature that gives them ‘badges’ whenever they completed a quiz section as a form of encouragement.

Validation

I did a prototype of my designs and had them test it out while I watched. These were my observations;

Users liked that there were video lessons and not just notes with diagrams to read.

Users liked the feature of seeing what their friends who also who have the app were learning and the quizzes they were taking or had completed.

Most of the users complained about the color, they said they would prefer if the app had different colors as opposed to the red that i used.

Users like the fact that they got badges after completing quizzes. They said it reminded of their video games where they won trophies whenever they completed challenges.

After the user testing, I made some changes to the app's colors since it didn’t get a positive review.

Here are the updated screens.

I tested out the updated screens with the users and they established that it looked a lot better.

Conclusion.

This was an amazing experience for me as it was my first time doing user research. I got to understand the importance of asking questions and knowing your target market before jumping into designing.

“Successful products are created by designers who know their users. Everyone else is designing in the dark”