Moneymanager: A Mobile Solution For Keeping Track of Bill Payment Deadlines
Moneymanager: A Mobile Solution For Keeping Track of Bill Payment Deadlines
Moneymanager: A Mobile Solution For Keeping Track of Bill Payment Deadlines
Table of contents
Overview The team selection process Brainstorming a question Ideation, ideation, ideation
Overview
The overarching theme of the project for INFO 360: UserCentered Design this quarter was about money: how people could make sense of it and how it is spent. This process book narrates the visual story, using artifacts from my groups design process, that explains the origins of our final design and my role in its creation.
Purpose
Theme
Zach Griswold
Developer Focuses on details
Kathryn Kuan
Designer Monitors team moral
Brainstorming a question
One of the first tasks we were assigned to do was come up with three design questions on the topic of understanding money. I instantly thought of dividing society into three different categories: college students, working professionals, and retired adults. For the sake of scope and simplicity, I decided to exclude children, homeless vagrants, and other social groups that lack power in the fiscal hemisphere. It became obvious to then focus more on the study of college students and money because I can mostly relate to that social group. I was not really interested in investing my own time to design something that would only impact older generations of people. I then shared my thought process with my team mates, who were also interested in focusing on people our own age. We then wanted to investigate how college students interacted with money. One thing that each member in my group had in common was that we all at one point or another had difficulty paying bills on time. After several rounds of discussion, we decided that we wanted to explore this topic of bill deadline tracking further. Then, the question was born: how can undergraduate college students keep track of their bill payments and deadlines? My team sought to find a solution.
College students
Working professionals
Retired adults
Mobile application!
Prototype 1
Prototype 2
Prototype 3
Filming a video
After our specification went through several group revisions, we filmed a complementary video. This video was assigned to be a multimedia story, persuading a stakeholder of our teams design that they should invest time, money, and attention to make our design a reality. Filming our video was very straightforward. All it took was a gung-ho group effort to meet for one afternoon and capture footage in one fell swoop. My role in this process was not only to coordinate the logistics of meeting, but to also film the video with my own two hands operating the camera. Once my group obtained the video footage it needed, I arranged for us to meet up at a computer lab several days later to grab final iPhone Simulator video material to insert into our film for extra polish. We worked extremely well on this part of the project, with everyone performing efficiency. Like a puzzle, everything fit together smoothly.
Arrange time and meeting location
Thank and praise everyone involved for their efforts in making the project a success
Follow through with supervising the video editing process and oversee any relevant decision making Film the required footage and double check to make sure all necessary shots are taken
Verify which people will bring which materials to the video shoot
Reflection
In retrospect, I was a bit hesitant about the entire design process. I started out with a topic that I wasnt even comfortable discussing (money) and was forced into working with an entirely new team of students that I didnt even select. However, this projectand the INFO 360 course in generaltaught me what it meant to be a designer. I have learned that a strong designer is not afraid to think unconventionally to solve a problem. I have learned that a strong designer takes risks and is not afraid of failure. I have learned that a strong designer can emotionally distance himself from his own ideas, and can effectively articulate rationale for his decisions between a wide array of audiences. Most importantly, I have learned that a strong designer knows the difference between getting the design right, and getting the right design. I personally found the entire process of designing MoneyManager to be a humbling and rewarding one. I never would have thought that I could accomplish so much in just one quarter. I now have a new found respect and appreciation for anyone in the design industry. Although my team has yet to discuss the future of MoneyManager outside a classroom context, I can truly see it becoming an application available for download in the Apple App Store one day.