• Make a list of similar apps and understand what they are doing and how they are similar and different from each other.
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2) Begin to identify who you're designing for and what makes them tick.
• Create a Persona based on who you think this person is you are designing for (once you know more about the actual people you are designing for we'll revise our personas, but this is a good place to start).
- Read: How To Create UX Personas
- Based on the reading, create a user persona for your app
- Keep in mind: Revise the questions as needed to be most relevant and helpful for the design of your specific app.
- Also keep in mind: the "needs and goals" should be related to the goal of what your app does for the people using it.
• Fill out this Empathy Map, based on your persona (who you think you are designing for).
- Again, keep in mind: these answers should be related to the goal and features of your app.
• If you have multiple players (such as Uber, that has both riders and drivers) design multiple Personas.
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3) Create hand-drawn storyboards as a way to prototyping the experience of your users using your app.
• Read AC4D Storyboarding PDF. Follow directions. Here's the worksheet too.
• If you're not comfortable drawing, here's a nice little crash course.
• If your work is messy, create a nicer final version on a new piece of paper for presentation – use a Sharpie and/or a fine-point Sharpie so we can see it clearly in-class.
• If you have multiple players (such as Uber, that has both riders and drivers) create storyboards from multiple points-of-view.
• Explore the complete cycle of needing to solve a problem and using the app to solve that problem. Create multiple storyboards if you need to.
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4) Revise your app definition statement and bullet-pointed list of key features to reflect your new understanding of what apps already exist, and the people you are designing for.
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Due February 14th (at start of class)
Bring these things to class and upload pics to your Dropbox folder:
• App name, definition statement with bullet-pointed list of key features
• Personas
• Empathy Map
• Storyboards
