Bungalow-Go

Introduction

Bungalow-go is my Capstone project for my interaction design degree. We used Goal-Directed Design (GDD) method in order to design our prototype. With the help of  About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design (4th Edition) by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, and Christopher Noessel, we were able to understand the Goal-Directed Design phase. Goal-Directed Design is broken into this phases: Research, Modeling, Requirements, Framework, and Refinement. Also, the capstone project provides me the opportunity to show what I have learned over the four years of my undergraduate and to showcase my skills.

For this project the team consisted of four members;

The research phase of Goal- Directed Design (GDD) is a users and the domain, and it helps to bring a gap between the users and developer. In the research phase, we gathered a lot of information about what we wanted to put on our website, and then we got together to select what we wanted. Our research phase includes Kickoff Meetings, Literature Review, Competitive Audit, Persona Hypothesis, and Reference/Misc. Images, and User Interviews.
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Kickoff Meeting

A kickoff meeting is the first meeting of a project, with stakeholders, team members, and project managers to talk about the project's objectives, subject matter, and timelines. This meeting helped to ensure everyone has a shared understanding of the project goals and outcomes and sets the stage for effective communication and collaboration throughout the projects.  Since this was a class project we did not have stakeholders, instead we did an assumption worksheet provided by our professor.

A literature review is an analysis of previously existing research on a topic. It involves searching and fully evaluating articles, books, websites, and other sources to identify ideas, features, and strengths. The purpose of a literature review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing research and to offer insights into the abstract and practical implications of the findings. It is an essential part of academic research and is used to build a foundation for further research projects. For our literature review we used the Kennesaw State University database (Library System) website to gathered some articles related to our product.

Our competitive audit is a thorough analysis of our competitors. Our competitors are Airbnb, Vrbo, Trivago, and Expedia Travel. It examines the positives and negatives of our competitors in terms of their products, services, marketing, and customer experience. A competitive audit helps to identify the space and opportunities within the market, highlighting areas where a business may hold a distinct advantage or hard competition.

Stakeholder Interviews

User interviews are a qualitative research method used to gather insights and feedback from users about a product or service. In our interviews, we ask open-ended questions so that our users can express their thoughts and experiences freely. The data that we collected from our user interviews were able to use to improve our user design, development our product, and refine our strategies. Our user interviews were conducted in-person and remotely and were useful in the early and end stages of our product development. For our users interview we use Discord, and Zoom. and We interviewed three people.

User Interviews Affinity Maps:

Modeling

During the modeling phase, we generated two personas based on the findings from our interviews, and then we began working on our users' tasks, activities, and goals. The personas are based on our study and data collected during our research process; So that we could better understand the needs and behaviors of the users.

Primary Persona: Adunni Ajayi

Secondary Persona: Elisha Evans

In the requirements phase, we pay attention to our persona behavioral specifics of each scenario and the connection between our model. Our design are basic on the behavioral specifics of our personas and goal. Context scenarios are use to investigate how the product may meet the demands of personas at a high level, where we tell stories about ideal user experiences, from those stories we hope to extract design requirements.

Primary Persona - Adunni Ajayi

Adunni will likely utilize our product while in her dorm or at a college friend’s house. She will be using our product for an extended amount of time because planning for a trip usually takes longer for her. Adunni will likely be frequently interrupted if she is planning with other people, such as her friends, if planning with those people together in one space. She will be the only person using the product if she is booking the rental on a computer or laptop. There are no other products that need to be used for our website. Adunni will need to have her finances covered, plans with friends confirmed, vacation dates confirmed (whether for school breaks or during the semester), research on the location of the rental, and have made the trip itinerary. The end result for her would to have booked a safe and comfortable rental. Based on Adunni being a 21 year old Gen Z woman, a lot of complexity will be allowed in our product.

In our framework phase, we define the behavior and visual design as well as the general idea. In addition, we created a wireframe of how our product would look. Our framework is based on our Research, Modeling, and Requirements phase, which helps us determine our users' needs and behaviors. We were able to meet our users' goals and tasks effectively and promptly since our wireframes acted as a guide for the design of our product's interface and functionality.

Wireframe

The refinement phase involves our team continuously refining and iterating designs based on our user interview testing and feedback; with the help of our Low Fidelity Prototype or it helped us refine our High Fidelity Prototype, we were able to do refinement. Our goal for this phase was to create a design that meets our user's interview needs, objectives, goals, and expectations.

Low Fidelity Prototype

Our low-fidelity prototype was just a quick rough draft mockup of how we wanted our product design to look. We used our low-fidelity prototype to do usability testing so that we can change design ideas and concepts before beginning our high-fidelity prototype and our final product. Our focus for our low-fidelity prototype was to quickly identify any major issues or usability problems that our user Interviews had. Which allowed us to refine and improve our design before moving forward with our prototype.

Low Fidelity Prototype Usability Test:

High Fidelity Prototype

Our high-fidelity prototype was a detailed and interactive mockup of our product that closely resembles our final prototype. Our High fidelity prototypes were important in our design process because it helped us to make improvements and crucial decisions.

The Final Prototype

Our final prototype is a combination of all Goal-Directed Design (GDD) phases that have been thoroughly tested and refined.

Conclusion

At the end of this project, I had the opportunity to revisit my first project where I utilized the Goal-Directed Design (GDD) method. This experience allowed me to refresh my knowledge of GDD. Creating a desktop interface for the first time was an enjoyable learning experience. I enjoyed collaborating with my team throughout the project and it allowed me to further develop my skills.