The problem that most college students have with the onsite laundry machines are communication problem with machines and people. More specifically, the issues that the college students are experienced are all the machines in laundry room are full and people do not get clothes on time. This issues can caused significant problems for students such as efficiency, security of clothes, frustration, and limitation of time. When taking all these into consideration, I decided to design an app that will solves the communication problem and save students time in terms of doing laundry. Most importantly, I want to design an app that will increase happiness and experience rather than frustration.

The main goal of the research was to learn students’ habits and behaviors are in terms of doing laundry as well as their experiences. Knowing students’ habits and behaviors are one of the key factors because the information allows me to come up a concrete solution. Since my target users are students who lived in the dorm, the assumptions that i made are:

                    - They are busy with school and less focus on laundry.

                    - Available laundry machines can be hard to find.

                    - Limited amount of cloth they have.

After interviewing 4 users, I found that most users does not have a regular schedule due to their time limitation on school works. Some of the users prefer schedule in advance so that they do not have to wait for other people. All four users explain that they don’t have a pleasant experience because people don’t take out their laundry on time and sometime the wait is too long. In addition to interviewing, I also went to the dorm to observe the laundry room on weekend. I noticed that a lot of people do not take out their clothes once the laundry is done. And, some people move other’s clothes in the empty machine so that they can use the laundry machine. On top of that, there are some people who leaves their laundry in the laundry room and walkout.

          - Laundry Service + Robot

          - App + Timer

          - Face Scanner + Timer

          - Wireless Machine to keep track the machine status + Robot

          - Easy to use for college students

          - Provide a enjoyable experiences and happiness

          - Update machines regularly 

          - Reminder to warn the students when the laundry is done

          - Able to schedule laundry in advance  

With the key qualities and functionalities in mind, I started figuring out the application flow and how the users would interact with it. I created two simple versions of the application through sketches that does the same thing but in different designs to test with potential users. 

Version 1:

Version 2:

After doing user testing, I decided to keep version 1 instead of version 2 because the design is more cleaner and simple compared to version 2. For my mock-up tool, I chose to use Balsamiq because it provided me a details view of the app. Some changes that I made from the feedbacks are simplified the title name in certain pages and redesign the section for viewing scheduled laundry.

After performing user testing with medium-fidelity, the feedbacks were mostly positive. Users like the idea and the flow of the application. Some users suggest to redesign the section for viewing scheduled laundry because it is hard to focus on just washing machines and dryer machines since there is not separation between them. In addition, another suggestion I got is redundancy for the buttons for notification and location page because both back and done buttons do the same thing. 

For the final prototype, I focused on color, font, and readability. In addition, I also made changes such as delete done button for both location and notification page and redesign the section for viewing scheduled laundry once more. I decided to use Lato as my typeface because Lato is a sans-serif font that is very readable on different screen sizes and resolution. In addition, the letterforms display harmony and elegance, which give a feeling of warmth due to the semi-rounded details. For the font, I utilize different weightless for the title, subtitle and body text. For the color, I decided to use one main color and two sub-colors for the entire app. The colors are in tetradic scheme. I chose to use more than one color because I feel it is too boring and plain in just one color. 

For this project, I learned a lot about the process of designing a product from defining a problem to final prototype. I learned brainstorm ideas, choose an idea, and then evaluate that concept. Conducting multiple user research gave me a lot of insights about specific situation or describing the problem the user had. In addition, it helped me practice what questions to ask and how to interact with users without conducting bias questions. From the insights I got, I realized there are a lot of hidden trends that I could not discovered by myself alone. The low-fidelity prototype allowed me to put everything I gathered into works as well as practiced rapid prototyping. For the mid-fidelity prototype, I learned how to use Balsamiq and able to practice iteration through my low-fidelity prototype. As for high-fidelity prototype, I learned how to use Proto and able to finalize my product. Usability testing helped me to understand how users would interact with the app and concerns that might be overlooked by designer.

If I had more time on this, I would conduct more user research as well as usability testing. I would have conduct fellow-up interview. In addition, I would do more iteration to make the app fits the users needs better and able to make the app live. 

Logo Icon: http://icon.reeoo.com/laundry-day/

In-App Icons: Proto.io