OVERVIEW
People struggle remembering gift-giving occasions of friends & family.
- Some felt obligated to use multiple apps in order to keep track of loved ones' birthdays and special occasions.
- As a result, people were late or less thoughtful with their gifts.
Giftster provides easy tracking of gift-giving dates and generation of gift ideas.
- Gift-giving dates can be tracked using the calendar function and suggested gifts will appear based on user profiles.
RESEARCH
To find out what people think about gift-giving.
I interviewed my colleagues, friends, and family members.
- 15 online survey responses.
- 6 in-person interviews.
A good gift is something thoughtful, it doesn't matter the price and doesn't have to be expensive. Something that is simple and not overbearing. Just to know they are thinking of you and care.”
—John
Affinity diagram.
- The compilation of all survey and interview responses has been organized into categories to help identify trends in people's opinions.
DEFINITION
Ideal user.
Sara Bennet
- Is 30 years old.
- Sara lives in Austin, Texas and is recently married.
- She wants to keep track of everyone's birthdays in her extended family.
- She has difficulty remembering new dates.
IDEATION
Organizing the ideas generated in internal brainstorming sessions.
- Using the “I like” I wish, what if” method, I brainstormed ideas for new features.
Visualizing each feature’s value and effort.
I decided to include the following features in my design:
- Calendar.
- Gift purchasing.
- Gift/wish lists.
What I learned from studying the competition.
- Facebook has a feature that alerts users of the birthdays and other special occasions of their friends and family.
- Amazon makes it easy to create wish lists and purchase items.
PROTOTYPING
The user's flow through the app.
I created a rough sketch of what I think the app might look like.
- The screens for selecting a calendar, choosing the date and editing profiles are shown in the drawings.
Refining the prototype to the low-fidelity stage.
- Design started to take shape and it was ready to be tested against real users.
TESTING
I wanted to see if users could navigate through to the end of the prototype.
I created a test plan that would allow me to evaluate the prototype against the following tasks:
- Can the user navigate to and use the calendar function successfully?
- Can the user reach a screen where they can purchase gifts?
I’m not sure what the little circles within the calendar are meant to represent.”
—Don
How I iterated design based on feedback.
- The participant list has been moved to make the calendar easier to view.
- Highlighted the day being viewed.
- A more obvious way of viewing another user's profile.
- The calendar now displays an icon of a person instead of the circles.
- A search function has been added to the event list.
- Changed the wording on adding events.
