Design Process
The Design Thinking Process
1.
Empathising
Empathy is an essential factor to consider when designing, as it focuses on understanding the users' needs and emotions to create a positive user experience and functional application that meets the users' needs. It is important to identify potential pain points and address them early in the design process.
Good empathising involves identifying a target audience, and their needs to understand the required functionality of the application in process. This can be done through the use of:
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Personas
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Empathy maps
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Journey maps
Identified user groups
3 target user groups were identified. Which include:
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Teachers
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Parents
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Children
Empathising techniques for one user group (Teachers) will be presented as a sample in this website, however, all empathising information conducted will be presented in the supporting document.
Persona for Carol (Teacher)
Empathy Map for Carol
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Journey Map for Carol
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Defining the need
2.
Defining the problem for the target user group is important as it provides the basis from which to begin and a goal or outcome to work towards with the solution. The need is the reason for why this application is required and what functionality should be focused on.
This section is outlined on the research page, including our problem statement.
3.
Ideating the solution
This stage of the design thinking process is very important as the brainstorming stage and all potential solutions are called out. We chose a gamifying route to teach about nature as the research supports this approach when working with children. A full description of the chosen solution can be viewed on the solution page. Below, our brainstorming phase can be seen, where ideas for potential solutions were proposed by the team members to begin the ideating process.
Brainstorming Initial Potential Solutions
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4.
Prototyping
Prototyping provides a clear idea and design for the application where all functionality is planned and accounted for. The colour scheme, theme, font, and style are all incorporated from a paper prototype, to a low fidelity wireframe, and to a final improved high fidelity prototype. The final working prototype would later be tested and sent for production. Changes can be made to a prototype in a faster and more efficient manner which decreases the budget than when made to be a final published production of the application.
Choosing Styles
We developed our colour scheme from the following colours as inspiration.
Colour scheme
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1.
We developed our game style using the following games as inspiration.
Style of game
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2.
We developed our game by first experimenting with different dimensions and fonts.
Theme of game
3.
Creating the Application
Paper prototyping
1.
Wireframing
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Low fidelity prototyping
2.
3.
High fidelity prototyping
4.
Development of Prototype
Feedback Which Supported Development at the Paper Prototyping Stage
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