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In-house project made to better the communication between design and development for faster product production.
Platform
IOS & Android
Timeframe
4 months
Technical Skills
Problem Statement
Can we increase Development and Design collaboration by working in a lo-fi reusable system?
Project Overview
The purpose of this application is to facilitate collaboration with the development team to accelerate product production. Our objective is to explore various ways the design team can provide enhanced value to the developers, thereby streamlining the development process and increasing efficiency. Not only are we trying to enhance collaboration, this is also an in-house project for our company employees to access recipes that have been shared throughout the company. We want to make this application feel native to our company branding.
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Experiments
This project was unique as it involved developing an application specifically designed to test various theories and experiments aimed at enhancing our production rate and refining our design team practices.
Cross Contamination - Does a lo-fi system allow for faster problem solving by ignoring the constraints of system level libraries. Understand the limitations of standard libraries and styling.
JIRA Product Discovery - We aim to evaluate JIRA Product Discovery's effectiveness in supporting our product ideation, prioritization, and roadmapping workflows. Our goal is to ensure it aligns with our processes for managing product ideas while improving cross-team collaboration, decision-making, and providing clear visibility into product progress for all stakeholders.
User Research tool (Maze) - Can Maze be a good research tool the design team can transition to?
Final Design File Handoff - Are developers able to navigate current handoff files and find what they need to produce the product that we want? Do we need to consider ways to make this easier for developers.
Tokens - Can the design team provide value to developers by creating variables and having them exported as JSON files?
Research
We began by identifying our key user groups: Developers, Designers, and At-Home Cooks.
Developers would use the application as a model for enhancing production rates.
Designers would leverage it to demonstrate how effective communication can refine team practices while also adding value for developers.
Lastly, At-Home Cooks would interact with the app as a cookbook, allowing them to view and recreate recipes shared by our team as part of our Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Next, we brainstormed the features we wanted to include in our application for version 1. To prioritize and organize these ideas, we conducted a card sorting activity. This allowed us to identify and categorize the various features we deemed essential for the initial version.
To kick off the project, we decided to conduct surveys to gain a deeper understanding of our users' wants and needs for the app. Using Maze as our research platform, we created a survey with the free version to identify pain points users experience with cookbook apps and recipe browsing.
The surveys revealed several key insights about user preferences:
Overload of Information: Users expressed a desire for straightforward recipes without lengthy backstories or irrelevant introductions.
Ingredients: Frustration arose from recipes featuring long ingredient lists or niche items that are hard to find.
Additionally, we found that users prioritized the following elements when searching for a recipe:
Ingredients: Clear and well-organized ingredient lists that are easy to understand.
Instructions: Simple cooking instructions that avoid unnecessary details.
Ideally, users wanted:
Simplicity: A streamlined experience where they can easily navigate and find what they need quickly.
Ingredient Search: The ability to filter recipes based on specific ingredients.
Ideation
After completing the initial research, we moved into the ideation phase, sketching out concepts for our wireframes. We began by building a component library, which would serve as the foundation for all wireframes in the app.
Our main goal was to foster greater collaboration between the development and design teams. By working with a low-fidelity, reusable system, we stripped away color and other design elements to focus purely on the user experience and interactions. This approach allowed us to prioritize functionality and streamline communication between teams during the early stages of development.
Throughout the design process, we collaborated closely with our developer to ensure the components were feasible. We set up regular design review meetings, providing a space for the developer to ask questions and establish a consistent cadence of communication, which we maintained throughout the project.
Deliver
In this case, we delivered our lo-fi designs to the developer. It was crucial to ensure easy navigation and access to the final designs, so we created a dedicated file for them. This file was organized specifically to be developer-friendly, making it easier for them to implement the designs during development. Although we didn’t fully complete the project, I gained valuable insights into how designers can contribute to streamlining product production. This experience taught me various strategies for enhancing collaboration and efficiency in the design-development process.
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