Bachelor Thesis Industrial Design Engineering
Introduction
This Project done for Creative Mules is my Bachelor Thesis. Starting from an idea direction, provided by the company, I finalized and tested a prototype / low fidelity MVP with real users. An overarching goal of the thesis was to understand if there is room for this concept in the market. At every stage of the project I sought validation.
Creative Mules had an idea for the co-living sphere to be validated and tested to understand if it is of interest for the company to make the project reality. The co-living market is up and coming and as a student/young adult I live it, hence it was of interest to me as I experienced multiple sides of cohabiting and understand the room for improvement. The market is ready for innovation and I am ready to bring it.
Structure of the thesis
Structure of the System
Research & Development
I started this project through literature and field research. Literature research was conducted to answer questions and hypothesis that gave the basis for one-on-one interviews and surveys. The field research was based on and overlapped the literature research but focused more so on experience of individuals with current options in the market while literature research was used to understand co-living dynamics and the market.
The next steps conducted were the formulation and extraction of information in interviews (thematic analysis) and surveys (graphs), taking conclusions in the form of desired functions and design direction. An important next step was to establish the scope of the prototype as testing needed to be done after design before available time runs out. After this decision UX and UI design was done. While doing UX/UI, I searched for and received recommendations for API's and external database platforms to integrate desired functions.
Throughout this process continuous feedback was gathered through one-on-one feedback and user testing.
User research data
UX
UI direction
Homepage functions
Selection of questions
Introduction and testing of a new function based on user wishes
Next steps
The prototype created in Figma was translated to web by a developer in the company and connected to AirTable by me.
The prototype created in Figma was translated to web by a developer in the company and connected to AirTable by me.
In the final step of the thesis I tested the prototype with two tests. Each test was focused on three metric categories to understand the opinion on certain functions and flow. Two tests were done because the application consists of two subsets of the same target group. Applicants and individuals looking for new co-livers. These results form part of the next steps for this project within Creative Mules.
