Lo-Fi Prototype
In our initial meeting to plan our lo-fi prototype milestone, we developed a scenario to guide our prototype development. The scenario allowed us to step through each activity that our persona Diane, which was developed in the previous milestone, would conduct. The scenario also provided us with a good starting point, which can be difficult at the beginning of milestones and forced us to think about each screen the user would encounter. Below is the scenario that focuses on the viewer/served persona developed in the previous milestone:
Diane receives a couple notifications from her cousin and her son who are living in different cities. She wishes to view the albums that they both have created and shared. Diane goes to her sons site and logs in to view the latest football game album Ryan has uploaded.
There are so many pictures in Ryan’s football album that Diane searches for the best way to view them all. Diane then noticed a very interesting picture of Ryan waving a flag in the crowd, which reminded her of when he was little boy watching sports on TV. She found this picture so interesting that she wanted to share it and engage her sisters in the dialogue around this picture. She also wanted to print a copy for herself. She also wanted to let Ryan know what this picture reminded her of, so she commented on the picture for Ryan to see. Ryan’s picture also reminded her of another picture from Ryan’s childhood that is somewhat embarrassing, but cute. So, Diane uploads the picture to Ryan’s football album.
Ryan then receives a notification that a picture has been uploaded to his album. Ryan logins to see the embarrassing picture that his mom uploaded and quickly changes the permissions so that only his family can see the image, rather than everybody.
After Diane uploaded that image of Ryan, she started browsing more of his albums and was surprised to see tons of albums that her son didn’t tell her about. So, she now wants to setup a notification feature to let her know when Ryan uploads new images to those albums.
Our First Iteration
In an attempt to jump start our meeting to develop a lo-fi prototype, each team member prepared for the meeting by sketching out prototypes individually based on the scenario above. During this meeting, we stepped through the scenario to discuss each page Diane would encounter and conducted a little show and tell of each team member’s sketched prototypes. The team then sketched a composite prototype for each page based on the individual prototypes on a white board to facilitate discussion. This was the most informative stage of the lo-fi prototype milestone because it generated so much discussion about possible ways to satisfy the Diane persona and scenario. The end result of our meeting was the first iteration of our lo-fi prototype, which can be seen below.
Iteration 1: Single Image View
Iteration 1: User Albums
Iteration 1: Single Album View
Iteration 1: Notification Fee
Refining and Finalizing
After the team had time to think about the first iteration, take notes of oversights, and to further consider changes, we met again to refine and further discuss the lo-fi prototype. There where times when the team discussed one thing, for probably too long, but we were able to collectively regroup and focus on simplifying the user interface for Diane. We realized that items that facilitated the most discussion were areas that needed the most thought and attention. These are areas of the user interface that we will focus on in the future. After many hours of discussion, we we’re able to finalize our lo-fi prototype, which can be seen below.
Iteration 2: Notification Feed
Iteration 2: Single Album View
Iteration 2: Single Image View
Iteration 2: Image Mouse Over Options
Iteration 2: Browse
Iteration 2: Notification Settings
Iteration 2: User Albums
Future Steps
Our client suggested we develop lo-fi prototypes for the registration process, as well as, the process for setting permissions for the admin user, which we are currently investigating. We will be posting those prototypes soon.