Course: Software Project Development Management
Role: Project Manager / UX Designer
Team: Kuba Haladus, Stephanie Hudon Hagan, John Valin, Kayanne Bryant, Noah Berthusen, Mohona Sengupta
Objectives: Create a startup to deliver a technological product to the city of Leganes, aiming to enhance the infrastructure in some significant way.
Read on to understand the business, or skip to the UX Ideation
All my team started with was a list of possible categories that our product could span. We realized that our business could define itself a health and welfare application that would aggregate similar concerns under a single domain. We created InteliMed, a tech firm that would deliver a complete application for the city board to distribute to their citizens.
Our business had to follow the European business standard in Madrid. Rather than using Agile, we were using the ESA methodology, an European waterfall-like process that centers around heavy documentation. Out of the twelve documents, I've highlighted the three that I was responsible for as PM and UX Designer:
I found very little time to truly ideate on the design of the application, as most of the semester was focused on the business side of our product.
However, eventually it came time to put together an interactive high fidelity wireframe.
Our user interviews gave us a good idea of what the application would need in order to be useful for the people of Leganes.
From those insights, my team and I were able to come up with a list of features per each category.
My next problem was deciding the hierarchy of options. If you were a normal person living in Leganes,
what would you want to see first? Why are you looking at the app in the first place? My main problem was that
I had to step into the mindset of not just a different person, but a different culture. So, I fell back on what I did know: personas.
Takeaways: My personas help me arrive at a few important insights: safety is a big concern, especially in a city.
The alert system would be most important to see immediately, so families feel that they know what’s going on in their neighborhood.
All the time-sensitive features, like daily goals and quick chat options must be easily found. I also realized that navigation must be easily
understandable and airtight, so every citizens from an elderly grandma to a teen could quickly find what they need.
I finally had an idea of how the information in the application should be organized, so I began sketching out the possibilities.
As a team, we decided that the interaction we wanted to showcase most was a user logging in to their home page,
swiping away an alert notification, and entering the quick chat feature with a doctor. I tried to iterate through ideas of how to lay out
the home page, as it felt like the hardest challenge.
Finally, I was ready to begin work on the high fidelity wireframes.
This was one of the most difficult projects I’ve produced, and doubly so because I was producing for a userbase that I didn’t quite understand. Study abroad not only brought me a better understanding of Spanish culture, but of the European business standard. The UX was honestly the easiest part—being a PM was tougher than I ever imagined. This was my first experience with budgeting for business, with directing a team, and making sure we not just delivered on time but on quality as well. At the end of the semester, not only was I incredibly proud of the product, but I was incredibly proud of my team as well.