Observer

Surprises are always around

Overview
Life will never lack delightful moments. We fail to catch the delight is because we let the world around us fade into a blur of familiarity and under-appreciation. It’s important for us to stop missing out on the beauty of the surroundings and start creating more delightful moments.
My Contribution
This is an individual thesis project with instructions. The research, interviews, wireframes, prototypes, iterations were done by myself after weekly check-ins with my mentors.
Duration
20 weeks
Tools
Figma, Photoshop, Premiere, Open peeps 
Mentors
James Wicks, Amy Schwartz, Mike Edmonds
01. vision

My thesis project span falls on the most unpredictable year, 2020, from March to December. We’ve been stuck in one place for a longer time and people all experienced mental stress. Inner peace and delightful moments have become more valuable than ever. Then I start wondering how can we stop missing out on the beauty of the surroundings and start creating more delightful moments in our lives?

02. value
The influence and importance of delight and other positive emotions are hard to measure. But we should never neglect their values and here to name a few:
03. research

I conducted the interviews with 10 people as the first round of research. I kept asking them, under what circumstances they would have delight moments.

After categorizing their answers and mapping them onto the framework, the design opportunity start surfacing.
It turns out that behaviors that are both proactive and interactive have the biggest potential to bring people delightful moments.
04. persona &
       insights
I further built the persona and came up with three principal insights that were derived from the research and will direct the design in the future.
05. exploration
I quickly sketched some concepts that could potentially bring people more delightful moments by tackling the three insights mentioned above.
I knew I had some assumptions and fantasies while I designing these concepts so I talked with 6 friends with different mindsets to validate the designs.
After that, I organized their feedbacks and built on some of their suggestions. Some of the key takeaways respectively: People don't want to stare at their phone while exploring. The need to keep an eye on the phone conflict with enjoying the view/journey; Reveal something with a history/story behind it would be more interesting and it's more suitable for tourists; People don't like the idea that they are forced to stop to do something.

The iterated concept and wireframes look like this:
06. design
Now, let me introduce you to the final solution "Observer",  an app that enables you to explore your surroundings, and see the world from different perspectives.
07. details iteration
It took me another journey to reach the final design you see above. I was lucky enough to test and talk with 5 more designers to learn from their experiences. And thanks to their valuable inputs, Observer become more satisfying gradually.
08. top features

To understand how Observer draft the problem better, let's take a closer look at the top features.

Make every route an adventure
Observer makes every route an adventure. The map is your canvas and your footprint is your paint. You will collaborate as a team to finish each painting when using it. Observer will generate exciting routes to help you explore your surroundings based on your location and preferences. And with the help of audio-guidance, you can explore freely without distraction from the phone.
Create a route
Join a route
Prompt you to be observant
The second feature is that Observer prompts you to be observant. Being observant is a skill that needs practice. By giving a group prompt while exploring, people are encouraged to be more observant and pay more attention to small details.
Give a prompt
Share and expand your perspectives
The last feature is about sharing and expanding your perspectives. After your painting journey, you would share your observation with the group and you will find out how the delightful moments vary from different points of view.
09. business strategy
Observer is an ideal team-building choice in the new normal era. In the long term, this product could be sold or collaborate with all-size companies with a need for remote team building. Employees can collaborate in the app, and companies might hold some internal competitions to strengthen their understanding of each other. It can encourage employees to stay healthy, both physically and mentally.
10. takeaways

01. When you are designing alone, you are very persuasive and even some mood changes can effect your decision making, I have made some wrong decisions along the way (I pivoted the persona in the second half of the process) but just be prepared to redo when someone else who is kind enough to notice that and point it to you.
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‍02. ​​One of the useful tips I learned in this project is: Capture your assumptions while designing. It is important to test our assumptions, but sometimes we just forget them. Be sure to capture and document them is useful for later testing.

‍03. Testing still needs to happen sooner. While I was testing with the user how they feel about the "prompt" feature, and whether or not would it be something that brings value, (The feature has already been built at that time) I am still not sure if I designed it right or that feature is redundant and even a burden for people. Luckily enough, I got positive feedbacks from most of the users but the uncertainty should definitely be avoided next time.