Share A Story

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Problem

Users do not intentionally and mindfully consume news, which is a pivotal point of today's generation.

Solution

Build a community to share and receive news, while highlighting the reliability of the source.

RESEARCH & INSPIRATION

Understanding the User

Staring with my client as a back-end developer, I integrated the AirTable database with an AI API, to automatically generate the values of each submission that a user would send. The current user personas we were working with were college students ages 18-23, with an interest in journalism. The database and interaction had currently lived on Slack and AirTable.

User Pain Points

I conducted brief interviews with the students to gather insights. Using this information, I mapped out a customer journey with key pain points. The areas with low satisfaction that arose in my interviews became the areas with greatest opportunity for a design solution.

Never checked their sources – Users who consumed any news articles never focused on who was writing, and how accurate the information was
Lack of placed to look – Most users felt that they got their most reliable information as shared sources from their community
Echo chambers – Users admitted they continued to see the same mentality and mindset because of their curated algorithms

"How might we encourage mindful media consumption and sharing to improve media literacy and civic participation?"

IDEATION

Story boarding

Identifying challenges in book discovery, including personalized recommendations and community engagement, led me to explore potential solutions. To ideate, I storyboarded different concepts to inspire creativity and envision the final experience.

DESIGN ITERATIONS

Paper Wireframes

Starting from low-fidelity prototypes allowed me to get feedback on the data flow and information architecture. I experimented with different iterations of each screen to find the most desirable design.

Digital Lo-fidelity prototype

After a brief round of user testing, I moved to digital wireframes.

In user testing with mid-fidelity screens, it was clear that potential users wanted more communtiy and engagement with peers. In addition, 60% of users mentioned that they would like more encouragement and progress bars.

Digital Mid-Fidelity Prototypes

After another brief round of user testing, I moved on to a mid-fidelity digital prototype.

Research Results

Too many steps and places to look – Users struggle maintain interest because they were navigating between different apps and platforms.
Lack of Motivation – Students admitted they only uploaded a story a day as per their class requirement.
Lack of community – Users did not feel encouraged to look at other people's post and engage with them.

Reflections and Next Steps:
1. Integrate all databases into one smooth web application
2. Users showed excitement and interest in the app potential
3. Users showed a great increase in more reliable data after using the app for a few weeks