Qualitative
Four prospective users were interviewed, to get a qualitative idea of what exiting views are around little libraries, reading, and mobile gaming.
Quantitative
To obtain quantitative data pertaining to the same subject matter, an internet survey was conducted, which reached 40 prospective users.
Analysis
Statistical methods were used to examine the quantitative data. This highlighted a trend which helped us to avoid a pitfall:
We initially thought to divide game players into teams/factions based on users' preferred book genre. However, using a basic confidence interval computation, we realized that our prospective users mostly gravitated toward the same genre, which would have created unbalanced factions.
To keep our team consistent in design goals, we developed two personas and accompanying empathy maps to scope in design goals. These design documents were required for our coursework due to their common use in industry, but I personally believe that User Personas are a tool that should only be used in more niche situations. In this project, they serve primarily to demonstrate that I am familiar with the concept and its execution.
We created a hand-sketched prototype, based on the information architecture. This provided us with a means to get design feedback before launching into the higher fidelity digital prototype.
After receiving feedback from our instructor and other design students, we used Figma to create a higher fidelity mock-up of the software. (For this portfolio, I later added a simple interactive flow to bring the prototype to life. You can tinker with it at the top of this page).
Our coursework required that we demonstrate 3D prototyping, as well as use of an Arduino microcontroller at some point in one of our projects. This impacted our initial decision to design a software that interacts with real world objects (little libraries).
For the (rapid) 3D prototype, we built a demo library out of cardboard, and then attached to it an Arduino module which we programmed to be an RFID reader. In theory, users would be able to tap their mobile devices to our little library in order to interact with it in special ways!
This feature would force players of our game to get out into their communities and physically interact with the libraries instead of simply gaming on their phones at home.
Due to it's academic scope, the project ended here, but there is a clear path forward:
Through several more Agile sprints, the Arduino prototype needs to be developed, and then the entire product, as a cohesive prototype, should be user-tested and reiterated, cycling through repeated iterative improvements until we have our minimum viable product ready for launch.
