User Journeys

User Journeys

Personas & Scenarios

Personas & Scenarios

User Group Analysis

Persona 1

Name	Oliver Poppy
Male/Female	Male
Date of Birth	08/05/1988
Country	UK
Occupation	Teacher
User Group	Skin Cancer Patient

Oliver is a primary school teacher who has been diagnosed with Skin Cancer. This happened after he has visited a hospital to check on a dangerous mole that was gradually growing on his back. Oliver is good with technology and easily understands how a system works when he sees one, as his generation grew up around technology.

Scenario: Oliver has been treated for Skin Cancer by removing the mole he had and he feels like he wants to share his story with the rest of the world. Being a Skin Cancer victim, he wants to both advice people on what they should get informed about and about the different symptoms. What is more, Oliver wants to support other patients who are still fighting in their own situation. He wants to make people optimistic. He learned about this app from the hospital leaflet and he downloaded it. He would like to take a video of himself talking about his experience and then upload it on the app.

Persona 2

Name	Tapiwa Chinangwa
Male/Female	Male
Date of Birth	17/11/1975
Country	Zimbabwe
Occupation	Customer Service Assistant
User Group	Friend of a Patient

Tapiwa is a Zimbabwean refugee that moved with his family in UK when he was ­­12 years old. He has 3 friends that they are very close from the age of 14 and just learned that Tommy, one of them, was diagnosed with Skin Cancer. Tapiwa is not excellent with technology, but he is one of those people who can figure out things in a matter of a few minutes.

Scenario: Tapiwa Chinangwe is in a neighborhood park with his 3 friends when Tommy announces to all of them that he has Skin Cancer. He also talks to them about an app he found which gives support to friends and family by helping them think positive and be optimistic. Tommy is optimistic about his situation and does not seem scared. However, Tapiwa is a more sensitive person and he downloaded the app right away. He is trying to work around it and make himself feel better for what he just learned.

Persona 3

Name	Alexandra Kavla
Male/Female	Female
Date of Birth	23/12/1962
Country	Germany
Occupation	Journalist
User Group	Mother of Patient

Alexandra is a mother of four. She is a famous journalist for 25 years. This means that she has heard and seen a lot of difficult situations. She has a good relationship with her kids and husband. She is a more of a theoretical mind rather than practical and she is not very familiar with modern phones. She owns an old mobile phone; however she also owns a tablet where she can download apps. Her children are the ones who help her and give her advice on how and what she can do with her tablet. Alexandra is also experiencing a difficult situation the past few months. One of her daughters was diagnosed with Skin Cancer of a dangerous form.

Scenario: Alexandra is in her work office writing an article when her eldest son knocks on the door. He visited at her job so that he could inform her that the health test of his sister showed that she has Skin Cancer. She immediately panicked and felt scared for these news as she cares a lot about her children’s health.  Alexandra wanted to find out about the kind of Skin Cancer her daughter has and how can they cure it. She is uncertain about what to do first. She is searching on her tablet of any information about Skin Cancer with her son. Her son finds a Supportive App for family and friends of people with Skin Cancer and he downloads it. Then, Alexandra uses the app and helps herself calm down.

Persona 4

Name	Julian Smith
Male/Female	Female
Date of Birth	02/02/1986
Country	UK
Occupation	Nurse
User Group	Sister of Patient

Julian Smith is a girl that always smiles and sees things in a positive way. She loves making people’s lives better and seen people smile from the little she can do to help. This is why Julian became a nurse. She is a very clever person, but she is not very up-to-date with technology as it never interests her. Julian’s twin brother had a very suspicious mole on this arm and she advised him to go check it out. Unfortunately, it turns out the mole is cancerous. Julian and her brother Victor are very connected because they are twins and can easily affect each-others feelings in a positive or negative way.

Scenario: Julian is in the hospital when her brother, Victor, calls. He breaks in with the bad news about his cancerous mole. Julian is shocked, but does not panic. She is optimistic about the situation as she sees people getting cured from that very often in her working environment. Nevertheless, she does not lose time, but finds a doctor and talks to him about the problem. He then tells her that everything will be okay and advises her to search online for any support website so that she could talk to other people with the same problem and find out for herself that her brother, following the right steps can be fine.

Out of the process of creating these Personas I have learned that this app idea will be helpful to many people, but the hard part is how to promote it. SCaRF should co-operate with several hospitals so that the doctors and nurses from those places can inform people of this app. Also, SCaRF should print out some leaflets that will advertise this small Support Community App and put them in the receptions of hospitals.

PACT Analysis

PACT Analysis

As we were taught in Semester 1, the PACT Framework is:

People

undertake activities,

in context

using technologies.

In explanation, in this section I will plan and analyze how the device will support the user in their activities. By the end of this phase, I should know the answers to the following questions having in mind that I am creating SCaRF Community as a mobile app.

>        Who are the end-users? Who else will be affected or will need to be involved?

>        What are their aspirations and objectives?

>        What do they want and need to do?   

>        In what circumstances?

>        What are the most suitable technologies for them, if indeed a technological solution is required?

PEOPLE

Physical Characteristics: People who are perfectly healthy as well as people with Skin Cancer or people with dangerous moles who want to find out if their mole is suspicious.

Psychological Aspects: People with uncertainty on the subject of Skin Cancer. Also, people who are looking for advice and people who need emotional support.

Social Aspects: People from many different cultures and age groups. However, this organization is local and it is based in the West Region of England.

ACTIVITIES

Temporal Aspects: The app is expected to be visited weekly by its members. This is because there will be continuous support and notifications of the upcoming Events. It will not be an app that is very busy; however it will be active through the forum.

Co-operation and Complexity: The activities of the app will be mostly involving an individual, but sometimes it can involve a group as well. For example, in the section of stories, a whole family could make a video and talk about their experience around Skin Cancer.

Safety Critical: There should be a person that will observe the activities of the app and verify or correct possible mistakes. If a rude comment is posted and there is no one to erase it, this may cause for a bad image of SCaRF that would have allowed such comments to be posted that may insult the organization or the Community Members.

Content: The content of the app will contain articles of people’s stories, videos of people’s stories, blocks of text with information about Skin Cancer, images of posters of different events and input boxes for contacting the organization or the doctor namely or anonymously.

CONTEXT

In class we were taught that ‘Context’ sometimes means things that surround an activity and sometimes what glues an activity together.

Physical Environment: Because the device used for delivering this assignment is a mobile, it can be used anywhere. However, the only requirement for this is to be connected to the internet so that the app can be loaded from the server and the user can interact with the rest of the members.

Social Context: This depends on the user and how he/she feels about Skin Cancer. For example, if the user is a patient, he/she may feel like using the app whenever he/she is in a private place. Maybe the user feels sensitivity around this subject and would not like anyone to give weird looks or ask questions about this personal topic. However, if the user is someone who does not mind the reactions of the society, then he/she will be able to use the app in any social context. Both groups of people will be part of the audience. I should have in mind that the app should look inviting and welcoming so that most people will feel good to use it around others.

Organizational Context: The app will be observed both by SCaRF and a person assigned to modify and update it. The organization itself will give feedback and assign to the person new information to be posted. The person who will be observing the app should make sure that everything works smoothly, the links are valid and the comments are polite.

TECHNOLOGIES

Suitable technologies to be used for the People, Activities and Contexts. This includes both Hardware and Software.

Input: The data that needs to be put into the system by the user will be entered using the mobile’s keyboard. Also, if the user wants to attach any pictures or videos, the options will be given on his/her screen. The mobiles that have touch screens will be used with touching the screen and the older mobiles will be used by pressing the keys needed.

Output: First of all, the app should be user friendly and its design should be appealing and appropriate for the audience. The app will provide instructions in the parts that require user’s action and should include appropriate visualization, affordances, mappings etc.

Communication: The app will be kept simple so that the access of each webpage will be easily loaded each time the user choses to visit a different page of the app. However, the overall speed of the app will have to do with the user’s internet connection and device processing speed.

In addition, before designing the app we should consider the ERGONOMICS around mobile devices. Ergonomics is the study of the relationships between people and their environment. Also, in PACT analysis another important component is studying the MENTAL MODELS. People develop mental models by interacting with systems, observing the relationship between their actions and behavior. Generally, the understanding and knowledge we have about how something works is referred as mental model.

Ergonomics: We are looking for the ergonomics of a mobile, as our product is SCaRF Community App. The way we hold the new generation phones is important. We usually hold the whole phone with our hand and touch the buttons or browse around using our thumb. Having this in mind, I should design an app that will have the menu in a range that the thumb movement will reach.

Mental Models: I should include sufficient information about the usability of my app. This means having an interactive design.

Creative Idea Generation (2)

Brainstorming Ideas

Generating my own idea

After sharing ideas in class and analyzing them, I had to choose my own idea and explore what could I do with it and what should I include. Below, you can find the explanation of my choice.

ESTABLISHING MY IDEA

Name: SCaRF Community

 Description: The app I decided to implement involves the creation of a Community for the organisation of SCaRF. The initial idea is that people who are cancer patients and friends & family of cancer patients will all share their experiences, feelings and support each other within this app. It will be a small community with forums about different topics, advice and information about Skin Cancer. In addition, this SCaRF Community will be open to people who have suspicions of having skin cancer because for example they have a mole that is growing and they would like to find information and get advice. This way, SCaRF Community will provide warmth and support to people whom experience of Skin Cancer is new and they do not know how to come up against it. What is more, is that by sharing successful stories of fighting Skin Cancer new patients will be more optimistic about their own situation. However, SCaRF Community would not be without the publication of Events and Sponsored Fundraising. The planned events will be posted, inviting all members and visitors of the app to join and invest some of their time in raising funds for a good cause. This app will both RAISE AWARENESS, but also provide links for DONATIONS.

                Content:

(a)      About Us - Info about the organization and its aims or achievements

(b)      Contact Us  - Available addresses, telephone numbers and e-mails

(c)       Information – The different kinds of Skin Cancer

(d)      Prevention – Tips and advice on how to protect yourself, prevent Skin Cancer and products you can use to do that

(e)      Donate - Why should you donate, where do the funds go and link to the donation site

(f)       Ask A Doctor – I want the community members to be able to ask anonymously a Doctor for any issues that they feel uncertain about and any question they may have in relation to Skin Cancer (This inspiration came from "Ask A Librarian" from UWE Bristol’s website)

(g)      Your Stories - Videos and Articles about people's stories to inspire and give hope to new patients

(h)      Forum - A health forum for discussion of subjects around Skin Cancer and its prevention

(i)        Events & Fundraisers – Publication and invitations for upcoming Events

(j)        Moods – Choosing between a small range of feelings: “Sad”, “Uncertain”, “Hopeful», «Positive” etc. and advice to help them feel better (This option will be given in the Homepage)

Creative Idea Generation (1)

Brainstorming Ideas

15 Ideas we shared in class

The second week of our sessions for this assignment we had a discussion in class about what we could possibly implement as an app that would support SCaRF website and cover at least one of two requirements: Raise Awareness or Increase Donations.

1.         Book Library – Online reading books that are related to Skin Cancer

2.         Tips for Tanning

3.         Prevention Products – Shopping from a variety of products that protect you from sun burn and skin cancer

4.         Rate my mole

5.         Swap money

6.         Choose from challenges – Get friends to vote and the one with most votes will be completed for sponsored fundraising

7.         Get personalized advice/tips based on your skin type

8.         SCaRF Events & Fundraisers

9.         Share your story

10.     Game – Stay in the shade

11.     Holiday Sun Diary

12.     SCaRF Community - Create a community for people who experienced cancer, family/friends of people with cancer that passed away and other people who are sensitive about the subject

13.     Skin Cancer Dictionary

14.     SCaRF website as a mobile version

15.     Achievements of SCaRF – Promoting Donations

Some of these ideas are really interesting. I think that many of them can be implemented and provide the desired results for this charity organization.

For example, “Tips for Tanning” is a very good idea. Tanning is a fashionable activity nowadays which unfortunately has many dangers including skin cancer. It involves mostly women, but some men are interested in tanning too and many people of different ages are out in the sun especially in the summer season. So, probably many people would be interested in a guide that helps them tan in the healthiest way possible, using appropriate sun protection products and expose themselves to the sun at the correct hours of the day. Good idea for advice and RAISE AWARENESS.

Also, another amazing idea is “Choose from Challenges”. This will attract a lot of people who are active with extreme sports and people who love have fun and challenges. It is a sensible idea for FUNDRAISING.

I also liked the idea of building an app which will publish “SCaRF Events & Fundraisers”. This will give a chance for SCaRF to promote the FUNDRAISING as well as help in RAISING AWARENESS.

On the other hand, there are some of these ideas that would be risky and might not work as well as the ones mentioned above.

For instance, making the “Game –Stay in the shadow”. This idea even if it delivers a very interesting game, it does not reassure that people will want to Donate. Games usually attract younger people and younger people are knowledgeable of the game industry. They would prefer to download and play something for free, even if the funds go in a good course. I believe SCaRF needs an app that will attract different ages and groups of people.

Also, “Rate my Mole” is an app that sounds creepy. I cannot imagine many people that would want to publish their mole and rate it, even anonymously. It is not a powerful idea for fundraising or for raising awareness. Skin Cancer is a matter that should be treated in a warm way, both for prevention or cure. Scaring the audience would not be the best way to inform them.

Criteria for making a good selection:

>        Meet the requirements (Increase Fundraising or Raise Awareness)

>        Attract people of different ages and groups

>        App that will actually be useful

Interviews

Interviews

Questions:

1.       How do you feel about donations?

2.       What inspires you to donate?

3.       What put you off?

4.       How do you donate?

5.       What kind of fundraising would you participate in?

6.       When did you last donate?

Maria Stephens Answered:

1.       Neutral

2.       Help children have a happy and healthy life

3.       People forcing you to donate or people who donate in order to show that they are helping and they put it in the news

4.       Credit Card

5.       Events in a temple or road, in a school or a hospital

6.       8 months ago

Angels Tazz Answered:

1.       Depends on what they are for. I like donations as long as it is not for animals.

2.       Good organizations that help children and disaster relief.

3.       I would never donate for an animal

4.       Direct Debit

5.       Scientology Volunteer Ministries, UNICEF, Red Cross, UNESCO

6.       A year ago

Cooholas Drives:

1.       If they are really for a good cause, I like them.

2.       The feelings of helping someone in need

3.       People who try to persuade you to donate in a bad way

4.       Peer-to-peer

5.       Raising money for kids

6.       2 months ago

Kay Dawg:

1.       The whole concept brings about mixed feelings. At first instinct I think of corruption and emblazing of funds, fraud, etc. and maybe that whole concept is influenced with where I grew up (Africa). Donating is a good thing in other senses and also depends of the course to which we donate. There is nothing more satisfying than giving.

2.       I believe we are blessed to be a blessing to others. We cannot make the world better by the little we do, but if we combine the little that everybody does it becomes one big thing that changes the world.

3.       I have seen people's donations being misused and also seen people donating to petty causes that the world can do without.

4.       "Give a man a fish and he will eat it for a day, but teach a man how to fish and he will eat fish for the rest of his life". So, it is by this principle I donate, taking a moment or time of my life that I would probably spend doing something else, but rather dedicate it to a worthy cause or someone.

5.       Anything to do with the poor and the homeless.

6.       I do not consider tossing a pound to a homeless guy a donation. So then, I haven’t donated for a long time.

App Analysis

App Analysis

Finding inspiration through other Apps

1. VoucherCodes.co.uk

(There are many other discount/voucher websites and apps just like livingsocial and Groupon)

(a)    Handy - By entering your postcode you get a list for the nearby offers, how far the offer is from you, address of the place and the actual prices

(b)   Simple - Large icons with only the very useful information displayed, simple menus and easy navigation

(c)    Categorizing - Sorting the deals in several categories like: Restaurants, Days Out, Shopping, Health & Beauty. This helps the user find the information he needs more efficiently & effectively.

Comments: This app works even better than their website. I like the clarity and the simple colours and texts used throughout.

2. Costa Coffee Club

(a)    Restriction - Can only access information after you input some. You need to login to the club with your email or search for the nearby cafes by inputting the name of your city or postcode.

Comments: It supports well their website. What I like about this app is the colours that they use. They keep a consistency of their image and this has as a result good branding.

3. iPerfumer

(a)    Useless - Not very sensible app. It is easier and more effective to visit a shop where you can actually try the different fragrances.

(b)   Informative - Could work for advice because it describes the perfumes and has ratings. However, fragrances have to do with tastes.

(c)    Low Efficient - Perfume is not something you buy every day, so why having an app that specializes on something you will buy only once or twice per year?

(d)   Blurry Icon (Logo) - Boring, not interesting app icon.

Comments: This app inspires me negatively. I would not use a dark and boring icon. Also, I should try to deliver an app that will be considered helpful and will meet the requirements that I will list after my user-centered analysis. This app does not complement the website as an extra.

4. Rock Radio

(a)    Welcome Screen - Loading all the radio stations and connecting to the internet

(b)   Simple - Clearly listing the radio stations by providing the name, description and an image

(c)    Good Mappings - Clear volume bar that you can scroll left or right to decrease and increase the volume

Comments: This app is a representation of the website. It is as simple as the website and displays all the content, but designed for mobile devices. It is more effective than the website as the user can listen to music on the go, at different contexts provided that he has internet connection. What I like about this app is its clarity and simplicity. With only 2 clicks the user can start enjoying music.

5. Pinterest

(a)    Suitability - The design of the app of Pinterest is suitable for its use. It has minimum amount of text and big HD images showing the different Arts & Crafts

(b)   Vertical Content - There are two columns of content. The sixes of each post vary depending on the sizes and amount of pictures displayed. However, this adds to the character of the app and it still looks clear.

(c)    Bottom Menu - The menu of Pinterest is at the bottom of the screen and it disappears when you scroll down. It appears again when you scroll back up. This feature naturally comes to the user when he has an experience with the product. It is not hidden.

(d)   Super-easy post - Posting is very easy. You just click the + button on the menu and by following a couple of steps you can have your own post in a minute

(e)   Flexibility - It allows you to create private or public folders in which you can keep your favorite pins. Also, you can share your pins with friends.

Comments: I think this idea works better as an app than a website so it perfectly supports the website. With a mobile device you can take pictures at any point and any place and make a post. Also, whilst being in a bus you can browse around and make good use of your time.

After the analysis of the above apps, even if they are not related to a charity organization I noted down some good mannerism and some bad mannerism around design, so when it comes to me designing SCaRF Community I will not make such mistakes.