November – December 2014

My Employer: Outware Mobile (Melbourne, Australia)

The Brief

The Google marketing team from Malaysia asked Outware for development assistance for an Android app concept that they had created. The goal of the project was to create a working app in time for Christmas, which enabled Android users to send a digital ‘box of love’ via an app. Typically in Malaysia, balikbayan boxes are filled with goodies and sent to loved ones, sometimes from across the world. This app would enable users to send images and videos, YouTube clips, posts from Google+, and sketches. The project timeline was a very short four weeks, with a scope that would normally take 3 months. As well as this time pressure, we were also working with an external design agency, that had input on the UI and motion design.

My Role and Process

When I commenced the project, I looked over the UI that had been supplied by the creative agency. The UI was not platform specific, nor did it take into account any errors, edge case scenarios, or empty data states.

As the interaction designer on the project, I led a requirements and interaction design workshop with both the client and agency, with the rest of the Outware team asking for technical clarifications where they needed. I sketched up the missing screens and dialogs in the workshop, added design and technical notes, and worked out the screen flow using the Android stack navigation. I also worked out the screen flow based on 11 different use cases that the user could follow. The next two days I spent wireframing in Omnigraffle, following Android material design guidelines, before presenting back to the client and receiving approval to begin writing user stories.

The different versions of the home screen, based on frequency of use

The fourth day of the project was then spent writing all of the user stories for the developers and testers to follow. Throughout the rest of the project, I provided development and testing support, refining the wireframes and stories as more scenarios were discovered during build or test, and working closely with the client on writing copy. Working very closely with the project manager, client, design team, developers and testers enabled us to meet the tight timeline and deliver the project to a high standard.

Challenges Along the Way

There was a distinct user flow through the box creation and sending process for a user to follow. However, there were three potential ending points for the flow, based on user decision. One flow catered for a user wanting to exit the process while the box was still sending, and continue using the app. This takes into consideration a box with heavy content (videos) and a slow internet connection. A second flow would show the final screen if the user did not exit the box flow while sending, or the connection was quite fast. The third flow allowed the user to ‘set and forget’ the box, instead setting a schedule to be reminded to send the box at a later day. This was to account for boxes being created early, and being sent on an occasion or special date. This meant wireframing all three versions, and working out the logic for each. I had to work out how the progression bar was going to work, since not all users would see the same final screen.

The first flow, second (without progression bar above the docked button) and third flow finishing screens

A second challenge was around the contacts screen. Users could select recipients to send the box to, and contacts from their phone would show up to select from. There were two caveats to this. The first was that the app was only on Android, and so could only be sent and received by other Android users. The second caveat was that to use the app, you could only sign in with a Google account, meaning that both users had to have a Google account. I considered showing only contacts with Gmail accounts stored on the phone, but found that that could be quite limiting, that we wanted to advertise the app, and Google wanted to broaden their reach in Malaysia. I ended up creating different dialog messages and emails, to be sent to different user groups.

‘Select recipients’ screen, above the fold version and a scrolled, with email address added version

The business logic was based on the recipients selected:

Check if recipient(s) email address is Google

1. If yes: check if user has the app

• If yes: send box (I am taken to the finishing animation screen)
• If no: send email. I will see an alert on how user can view the box
• I can tap ‘Continue’ to progress with sending or ‘Cancel’ to not send and remain on the ‘Wrap the box’ screen
• Box goes into Outbox. (I am taken to the finishing animation screen)

1. If no: check if amongst the recipients, there are any Google email addresses amongst the non-Google ones

• If yes: send box to Google addresses and send email to non-Google addresses. Box goes into Outbox. I will see an alert on how user can view the box
• I can tap ‘Continue’ to progress with sending (I am taken to the finishing animation screen) or ‘Cancel’ to not send and remain on the ‘Wrap the box’ screen.
• If no: send email to non-Google address. Box goes into draft. I will see an alert on how users can create a Google account and view the box
• I can tap ‘Continue’ to progress with sending the email(s) or ‘Cancel’ to not send and remain on the ‘Wrap the box’ screen
• If I tapped Continue, I will see an email intent with my email apps.
• I can tap elsewhere on the screen to dismiss the intent
• I select an email app, which opens on the compose screen

I didn’t envy the testers with this test case!

Learnings

From this project, I learnt about:

• working under a tight timeline – creating the ‘happy’ flow and main error scenarios in a waterfall fashion, and then working iteratively closely with the team for the edge case scenarios, which enabled us to keep the effort moving forward
• taking into account privacy – both for using the app in general, and being able to block users or delete boxes
• being my first material design project for Android, I learnt about the new sizings, language, UI elements, animations and transitions

Result

Google’s success benchmark was a download figure of 10,000 installs. Within the first week of launch on the Play Store, the app was downloaded over 15,000 times, beating this figure by 50%. Currently (May 2015), the app has a rating of 4.2 out of 5 on the Play Store.