NODAL
CONNECT. COLLABORATE. COMPETE.
User Experience (UX) - Mobile App
OVERVIEW
The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind. Our minds are so powerful, we can invent, create and experience things on thoughts alone and when two minds collaborate, we can truly achieve amazing feats. There are so many opportunities out there that encourage people, especially students to collaborate as today’s students are tomorrow’s future. But, there is a problem here. How do students meet other students to connect and collaborate? That’s where Nodal comes in. The opportunity is to provide a fully integrated and seamless platform that allows students to meet other students to connect, collaborate and compete.
TIMELINE
3 weeks
PLATFORMS
iOS Mobile Device
ROLE
UX Designer
TEAM
UX: Jenifer Wong, Julian Tomlin
UI: Shirley Zhou, Olivia Meek
TOOLS
Sketch, InVision
DESIGN METHODS
User Research, Domain Research, Surveys and Interviews, Competitor Analysis, Affinity Diagram, User Persona, Storyboarding, User Flow, Sitemap, Information Architecture, Feature Prioritization, Wireframing, Usability Testing, Prototyping (paper and digital medium fidelity)
THE CHALLENGE
We were challenged with creating a fully integrated and seamless platform that allows students to meet other students to connect, collaborate and compete. Within 3 weeks, we created Nodal as the solution to this problem. Nodal is is a mobile application that allows students to connect, recruit, and get matched with other compatible students to participate in competitions. The app has a list of competitions and students will be able to indicate if they are interested in participating and they will be able to view the profile (skill set and level of interest, a.k.a like a mini LinkedIn) of other students who are interested as well and connect with them and potentially recruit them to participate in competitions.
PROJECT GOALS
create a logo
customized iconography
brand guide
high-fidelity wireframes
FEATURE REQUIREMENTS
profile creation
a messaging system
viewing and selecting competitions
THE SOLUTION
USER RESEARCH
We conducted two online surveys and more than ten in-depth interviews. We discovered 2 distinct working styles in teamwork settings and that mismatched motivations or goals between team members lead to dysfunctional and conflicted teams. We believe that matching team members with the same work style would help alleviate this pain.
Another finding is that students compete in competitions for 3 different reasons. When these motivations clash, the team dynamic is dysfunctional and the competition experience is not satisfying. The Nodal app is designed to help students find team members that work well with them and share the same working style as them. Nodal aims to provide users with the best team work experience not just within the app but also outside the app.
COMPETITOR / COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Conducting this analysis helps us understand the market and what user needs have and have not been met. At this moment, there is no app that does what Nodal sets out to do. The closest indirect competitor would be LinkedIn. Other apps we have looked to for inspiration and design references are Tinder, Shapr, Meetup, Facebook and Messenger apps. These are social networking focused apps that try to build and bring a community together.
User Persona
Based on an affinity diagram, surveys, and interviews, we created the persona who would be using the app. The persona helps guide us in creating a user-centered product and making sure we meet their needs and alleviate the frustrations they have.
PIONEERING THE MOTIVATION CIRCLE
One of our biggest features and unique selling points is the Motivation Circle graph which appears when you fill out a questionnaire before joining a competition and being matched to a team. We finally settled on the version of the circle below with 5 concentric circles that follow the 1–5 point scale where users rate the degree of each of the 3 motivations for joining a competition.
The Motivation Circle has gone through many design iterations as we did further testing of our prototypes. We have tested different iterations of the graph and discovered that users found reading the circle with different colours the best compared to the other infographic formats. This is the final iteration of the motivation circle used in our high-fidelity prototype (bottom).
User Flows
The focus of our primary user flow is to allow the user to sign in or register for an account and create a profile, view and select competitions of their own interest, read competition details, join the competition and find a team by filling out a short questionnaire to help with the app’s matching process, and chat as a group with matched team members. We created this detailed user flow for the web development team. The solid red lines is the primary user flow, the dotted red lines is the secondary flow, and the blue dotted lines are alternative flows.
DESIGN DECISIONS
