Overview
The Project: Designed and prototyped a networking app for the Fordham Foundry (Fordham University's Entrepreneurial Hub) and worked with developers to create an iPhone app.
Skills Developed: Prototyping, Iterating, Designing for iOS/ ReactNative, User Testing, User Research
Programs: Sketch, InVision, Marvel, Photoshop
The Project
Fordham is a Jesuit University with campuses throughout in the New York City area. This 6-week summer internship project focused on designing a networking app for the Fordham Foundry (the entrepreneurial hub for Fordham University). I worked closely with the front-end and back-end developers to implement my designs. The app was successfully launched on July 12th, 2018.
The Process
The Foundry wasn't pleased with the results of last summers app development project (poor UI/UX, little functionality, dated content), so this development project was a complete overhaul and update of the previous app. We had a team of four (Project Manager, Front-end developer, Back-end developer and UI/UX Designer).
Understanding the Users
I began to understand users through a series of questions on Google Forms, and in person interviews. I created a user persona and a user journey to help the team and I better understand our users motivations for networking. I was able to conclude that students, alumni, and faculty find it difficult to connect with within the Fordham community. Students looking for career advice, or job opportunities want to stay within Fordham's network, and alumni want to hire people from their own university.
Designing for the Users
I began brainstorming and working through ideas by creating sketches, user flows, and wireframes. I consistently presented ideas and designs to my team, as well as Foundry directors, designers, and entrepreneurs.
Mock-ups
I created high-fidelity mock-ups and worked with developers to translate my designs into code. There were times in the process where the developers weren't able to translate some of my designs, and had to go back and make changes.
User Testing
I was able to gather 9 Fordham students and 5 Foundry employees to test my designs on Marvel using Lookback. We also reached out to a contact list of ~12 Foundry members to provide feedback. The feedback was essential in confirming my design hypothesis, as well as helping shape the remainder of the project. Our team cut out functions that were not essential, so we could meet the projects time constraints. After translating the designs to code, we ran 5 test flight versions before submitting the app.
Findings
I learned a lot from my weekly meetings with Foundry directors and members, especially in terms of having to cut down features due to time constraints. This was the first project that I worked with developers on, so I learned a lot about what can and can't be translated into code.
