Go Formosa
TYPE: Application UI/UX Design
CLIENT: Go Formosa
DATE: Nov 2019-Jan 2020
Research
Background
"Go Formosa" is a self-regulated organization built up from a group of Taiwanese people who addicted to outdoor activities. No matter worldwide attractions in the foreign country or mystery destinations in Taiwan. These people devoted to encouraging people who want to take advantage of leisure time to discover the beauty of the world.
You can sign up for most of the activities by free! Furthermore, not only may you surprised at spectacular nature but also can meet a lot of new friends when you become part of the members.
Pain Point Analysis
Too many social network platform > Always forget who are you after the adventure > No fixed friendship tools to get in touch
Target
My passion is to provide a platform to connect attendance, as well as creating a social network to attract people who are passionate about outdoor activities.
Competitive Analysis
Instagram : An American photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, Inc.
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It's all about photo story
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It's big network
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Instinctual usability
Hiking Biji : Designed for people who love hiking or trekking. It's committed to promoting hiking information so that adults and children can go outdoors easily.
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Detailed Categories
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Photo-style blog
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Options at a glance
About the features:
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Take photos and share them
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Record your achievements
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Conduct a recruiting meeting
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Follow the like-minded friends
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Connect easily with your friends
Target Audience / Persona
David Chang
32 years old
One of Go Formosa's co-founder. He always promotes trail-running, which means running in the mountain. Personally guiding numbers of trail-running activities by a routine.
Jim Sun
28 years old
Either he is in the ocean, or on the mountain. He believes that be outdoor not only can fill your energy but let you realize how extraordinary the world is.
Christina Ko
25 years old
Started photography in the high mountain in 2017. So far she has traveled to several One Hundred Peaks in Taiwan. She enjoyed trying new things and making new friends.
Proposed Solution
Mood board
I took advantage of three words that separated from the team's name "Go Formosa" and their philosophy which was "Born to be outdoor" as my initial inspiration.
Sitemap
Go Formosa App provide like-minded people to gather in an easier way. Showcase your achievement and adventure from your profile. This platform also analyze your interested tendency through user record their accomplishment. Furthermore, photograph and post instantly the moment you are enjoying outdoor activity.
Initial Sketch
Based on my sitemaps, I drew some rough sketches of wireframes for some of the main to represent how the screens would be laid out on the mobile devices.
Wireframes
As a cumulation of my process up to this point, I created app wireframes using Adobe Xd. As we were limited to a monochromatic color scheme, I mainly used grey to indicate which features were "pressable" or clickable hotspots. Afterwards, I used Adobe Xd's built in "prototype" feature to add interactive hotspots to my wireframes.
User Flow
Objective: Aim to convene some people to have a running trail this weekend.
Logged In > Feed > Camera > Library > Choose Photos > Post
Objective: Sign up as a new member and see who attended to my interested activities.
Sign up > Feed > Activity Content > See Participant > Join the Activity
Objective: I want to search for a girl who interested in trekking like me, then make a friend with her. Then further discuss whether if he wants to come with us on the next weekend.
Feed > Search > Others Profile > Make Friend > Start Chat
To tie in with the general theme of GO Formosa, I used a color scheme reminiscent of freedom, with bright blue, white, and grey as the predominant colors for the prototype. I felt this color scheme helped give this app an optimist and summer feeling, which I thought users would appreciate considering its purpose as a social media and self-achievement record app.
Final Design
Using the feedback from the first analysis session, I made note of which features received positive and negative feedback. Again ideate on how to improve the features that keep receiving criticisms. In a consequence, I took the advice to improve functions and usable processes.
After held another critique session for us to share and demonstrate our hi-fi prototypes with these users. Compared to the first session, my hi-fi prototype received much more positive feedback, with many praises directed towards the name, logo, and color scheme.
Interaction and Revision: Hi-Fi Prototype
Reflection
Based on the feedback I received, my prototype was generally a clear and effective representation of an app that would allow users to record their achievement and make like-minded friends in a simple and straightforward manner. Overall, this was a very exciting project for me as this was one of the few instances where I could create a working app prototype on my own - however, this did lead to some pitfalls, such as not having another pair of eyes to check for quality assurance and to pitch in design ideas.
Future Improvements and Changes
As indicated from the very helpful feedback and suggestions that I received, there are many opportunities for improvement to make my Design thinking more user-friendly and intuitive. Some possible changes and improvements I would make to better inform design are:
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Conduct a competitive analysis of other task management apps to gather information on their strong and weak points
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Conduct more user research (i.e. surveys, focus groups, interviews) to learn more about what pain points people have with task management apps rather than relying on just my own anecdotal experiences - the lack of user research due to time constraints was definitely a weak point in my process.