My 14 weeks Journey at DesignBoat School
DesignBoat school has been a secure space where I’m the most “me”. I had confidence in my work, and I was surrounded by creative minds who made me feel excited to start the day. It gave me a different and unforgettable experience in my life.
Not unlike any journey, some of my outstanding experiences come from teamwork, communication of ideas and the drive for perfection. Primarily based on these, i am time and again confronted with inspirations and experiences taking me out of my consolation zones, changing me all the time.
I had a passion for creating an application from scratch. I am fortunate to have pursued my learning in DesignBoat school because i got a chance to work on iOS, Android and website. To be very honest one of the main reason i choose this design school is because of the approach and output of portfolios of students from Design Boat school.
How was 14 weeks course crafted? Isn’t it too much or too less span to learn designing? A lot of questions inside of me. Let me break it down how it works.
6 weeks of UX (team work) — I learnt how to be a team player, communicate better, understand different perspectives and a good leader.
6 weeks of UI — I learnt how to be patient, meet deadlines, creative thinking, importance of feedback and obviously visual design 😉
2 weeks of case study and portfolio — I learnt the importance of storytelling, presentation and validation.
Overview of my Design Project
🧐Problem Statement
Domain: Parenting
When a parent/child with one or more developmental disabilities is born into or are a part of family, they often experience a range of emotions (shock, grief, anger, depression) that are somewhat similar to those experienced upon learning about death of loved ones.
Will this affect Parenting?
Yes, While experiencing such emotional reactions they require a period of time to adjust and during that time, parenting may be affected. The stream of influence between parents and children is bidirectional rather than unidirectional. Parent-child relationship lays the foundation.
💻Process
🥸Research
Before jumping straight into solution, I wanted to validate the hypothesis and also learn about the user.
- What are the issues faced by people with disabilities and their families?
- How is parenting getting affected ?
- What is the potential solution that can solve the problem?
Quantitative Research
To discover those answers and to study extra approximately user behaviour , I sent out a survey to a group of people.
Qualitative Research
At the same time as I waited to get enough responses, I interviewed 10 users. It included families with members having disabilities and normal families. And in families with special needs I interviewed two types of people :
- Parent with disability
- Child with disability
Questions from interview
- How do you spend time with your children/family?
- How did you choose the doctors/professionals for therapy/checkups ?
- How do you manage all the medical reports and prescriptions?
- How well and how often do you guys engage with others for playing, trips and other activities ?
- Can you share about an article/real life scenario/ video that was a life changer or inspiring for you?
- Who takes care of the child/partner when you are away ?
- Do you have a caretaker ? How did you find and select a caretaker?
- How are you able to build a strong relationship as a family ?
- How do you communicate with your child/partner about their setbacks and disabilities?
- You are often stressed due to work and family, How did you handle it?
- What is your child’s aspiration or dream ? How often do you discuss with them?
- How did you handle when the child/parent went out of control ? Did you feel you needed any quick help?
Based on the interview and survey, I mapped out user persona and empathy mapping of a user. A journey map was created based on our previous experiences with the features we decided to include after the interviews. That moment i realised how it feels like standing in user’s shoes.
User Persona
Persona helped me uncover the different perspectives, motivations, and needs of the users.
I extracted detailed personas from online surveys and user interviews.
Empathy Map
What does Kevin feel, think, do or say to overcome the problem?
By making an empathy map, I was able to visualise and understand his behaviour, giving me a sneak of the exact emotion/feelings when facing the same problem.
😇Ideate
Based on the research conclusions, I laid down a few concepts to observe when constructing the app.
- My application should provide all the medical professional support. It’s should not just restrict to parenting therapy but also should include consultations and play therapy.
- caretaker facility should be provided to the users. One common point from the interview was finding a caretaker for a person with developmental disability is difficult.
- Provide a safe space-community for the users where they can share, read, write and participate in activities and support each other.
- Emergency services — Most of the children with disability tend to get heart aches and fits during midnight. It’s a panic to parents to find help.
🤩Design
A good UX process helped me design better. During the design phase I created the wireframes both Lo-fi and Hi-fi, which was later converted to Visual design. I always showed everything to my mentor the moment it’s ready, as it is the most important thing because I got better with every review and feedback.
Splash Screen
Presenting user to isAbility
Onboarding Screens
Essential data like mobile number and OTP is collected during onboarding. Simplified sign in and sign up experience.
Home Screen
This page shows the latest and trending offers and events. It’s the most viewed screen on the application.
Services
Finding a specialist, caretaker and special schools based on the disability is tricky. So providing the users with well versed detailing and categories.
Community
Want to Connect with the community where we are not treated differently?
Meet, Read, Write, Ask, Participate. You are not alone.
Emergency
Oh god! Emergency. Whom do I ask for help during this time. It’s too late to call someone
We are just a call away. Users can call to the nearest emergency service for immediate help.
📱Test
In the final stage of the design process, usability testing was performed and the results generated during the testing phase were used to redefine problems and inform the understanding of the users.
During this phase I made alterations based on users input and feedback.
Last 2 weeks were completely dedicated to case study and portfolio. The excellent part is that I had to work with a different mentor throughout these two weeks for portfolio presentation. To begin with I felt why different mentor however very quickly i realised my designs were stepped forward along with his insights. I’m satisfied my work was reviewed in two distinct views and I was able to gain significant expertise.
Complete project: https://www.behance.net/divyadonepudi
This is the wonderful period of my life and will always be a part of me. Apart from learning, I learnt a lot of things from the including; patience, sincerity, loyalty, sincerity, friendship, discipline and empathy. DesignBoat school is really an unforgettable account of my experiences. I would like to thank each and everyone involved during this learning stage. Incase you are interested to know more about them — DesignBoat School
That’s a wrap🥲
I’m very keen to your Design journey. So hit me up if you got any. Glad to connect.
Wanna know more about me and my experiences. Let’s chat on https://www.instagram.com/uexpbydivya/
