This is a modified version of the Google Ventures (GV) Design Sprint focussing on solving the problem of helping users find the most instagrammable locations in any city.
Overview
Gramcity is a photo editing app that helps users easily make their photos look awesome before sharing them on social media.
Now, Gramcity wants to explore how they can help their users find great photo-ops near them.
Constraints
- The solution must be designed as a mobile application.
- Gramcity wants to help users find physical places and locations.
- Gramcity wants to create an active community of users who find and share their favourite locations.
Role
My role as a UI/UX designer was to run a solo design sprint and find the best possible solutions to this problem.
Process
The GV Design sprint process was as follows —
Day 1: Mapping
The first day of the design sprint was spent understanding the problem through user research. Users were asked to share their experiences and process on how they go about finding great places to take a photo in any city.
Personas
Identified two user personas which highlights the goals and frustrations that the end-users have while finding great physical locations nearby.
How Might We (HMW) Questions
Synthesising the user research, I arrived at the following HMW questions —
1. How might we help users navigate through a city with ease and help them find the most instagrammable photo-ops.
2. How might we allow users to save their favourite locations so that they can use it as a quick reference point in the future.
3. How might we help users plan an effective itinerary around their favourite locations in a city.
4. How might we encourage the users to engage in a community and interact with other fellow travellers.
Mapping
I sketched a couple of routes that the user would take to find locations in a city of their choice.
Day 2: Sketching
The second day began with lightning demos. This meant reviewing competitor products that were trying to solve a similar problem.
I scanned through Pinterest, Tripoto, and Meisight to understand how places are grouped and to observe the visual styles used.
Crazy 8's
The next step was to pick the most critical screen from Day 1’s Mapping exercise and create 8 quick sketches in 8 minutes to ideate various iterations of this screen.
The screen I picked was the landing/home screen, where the user is able to find locations nearby and also perform search. This is the most critical screen as it nudges the user to search and find their preferred locations.
Day 3: Storyboarding
Day 3 was spent focussing on creating a storyboard of the various actions a user would take to reach the critical screens.
I started with the landing screen, proceeding to the search results and the detailed view when the user clicks on a specific place card. I also sketched the user journey when engaging with the community and posting questions.
Day 4: Prototyping
It was now time to convert the paper sketches to digital mockups. I started by creating low-fidelity wireframes in greyscale.
Converting these wireframes to High Fidelity Screens by adding visual design elements was the next step.
Some of the key features that were added to solve the problem —
Onboarding
A new user is onboarded on to the app by taking in his photography preferences. This is done to personalise suggestions of insta-worthy places near him, when he first lands on the home screen of the app.
Searching for a location
This is one of the most crucial features of the app, which allows users to find physical locations in any city. The user can input a city of their choice and they are presented with a list of personalised recommendations. In the search results there is also a link to Map view which will be explained in the following section.
In the screen for the detailed view of a specific place, the user can perform the following actions —
- Get directions
- Look at what other fellow travellers are saying about this particular place
- Add this place to his itinerary
Map view
In this section of the app, the user can see a overall view of the map at his current or preferred location. The Map view contains a horizontal carousel of suggested places. He can moved around the map and have a quick glance of how far are places from one another, this is to help plan his itinerary in the most efficient way possible.
Community and Profile
In the Community, the user can view, comment and like posts from other travellers in the community. He can post queries about a specific place, and also answer to the questions posted by other users.
In the Profile section, the user can view his own posts, along with his liked posts from the community and saved locations.
Day 5: Testing
The last day of the sprint focussed on testing the finished prototype with 5 users. The usability test script was as follows —
You are currently in New York, I would like you to check out Santa Monica pier, which is a top photo place in Los Angeles and add it to your itinerary.
You are going Los Angeles to and to help you plan your itinerary better I would want you to find top 5 places near by for aesthetic photos.
Now that your itinerary is planned, I want you to view your itinerary and remove a place which you wish to not go.
You have a query about a place in Los Angeles and you want share with the Gram City community.
I want you to access the posts and locations you wish-listed in the app.
I interviewed 5 users among friends, colleagues and peers. 4/5 participants were able to successfully perform all the tasks. One of the participants got confused in the last task- to access the posts and locations wish-listed in the app.
This led to one of the usability issues — there was no clear distinction when viewing between the saved locations and liked posts in the app.
I solved it by including separate tabs in the Profile section for viewing the liked posts and saved locations.
In the first version of the high fidelity screens the Itinerary carousel in the home page seemed a bit too linear compared to other sections in that page. Since this was primality a photo-based application, I solved for the linearity by adding visual cues in the Itinerary carousel as well.
Interactive prototype on Figma
Conclusion
The 5 days GV Design Sprint was a very effective way to come up with ideas and validate them in a time-effective manner. The process helped me design a solution for the problem at hand efficiently and undertake the entire design process within a week’s time.