El Cielo App
Role: UX/UI Design
Year: 2023
El Cielo Country Club is a gated community with an estimate of 1,500 residents. El Cielo provides security, open spaces and conviviality. It is located in Tlajomúlco de Zúñiga, Mexico, on the heights of a hill and is next to La Primavera Forest. Within the development there is a golf club where national and international events are occasionally held.
Background
Within the subdivision itself there have been communication problems between the administration office and the residents. Also, being a large subdivision, there is no means of communication between residents when an event or service is offered or simply to extend the network of connection between neighbors.
Problem
Develop a mobile application that offers direct communication from the administration to the residents and vice versa. Within this application provide information such as map of the subdivision, maintenance schedules of open spaces, contacts of services near the subdivision, discussion forum between residents, instantaneous notifications of the administration and many more services.
Solution
My role
UX Design
Benchmark
UI Design
Persona Map
Prototype
Research
I decided to work with the Double Diamond design methology.
In any creative process, a set of possible ideas is defined (divergent thinking), then refined and reduced to the best ideas (convergent thinking). This can be represented in the form of a diamond. However, the Double Diamond indicates that this happens twice. The first is to review the problem definition and the second is to create the solution.
Design Process
Discover and Define
I started my secondary research by analyzing 15 mobile apps that have a similar objective within households in Mexico and around the world. To analyze further, I made a benchmark table where I wrote a description of each app and analyzed other categories such as their focus, how they do it and what services they offer. Following this, I elaborated a Blue Ocean analysis to find the advantages of each app and the things that need improvement. This analysis helped me identify some possible category creations that can be made in the market of apps that help residents within private subdivisions.
Benchmark
Fracto: App that allows residents to find and book services in their subdivisions.
AppAyuda: App that allows residents to request help from other residents, for example to take care of children or pets.
Unifón: This application allows residents to pay their HOA dues and other bills.
Clubhouse App: App that allows residents to create and join clubs based on their interests.
Cozy: App that allows residents to rent their homes or apartments to short-term guests.
Building Link: App that allows residents to communicate with their property managers and other residents.
Mi Casa App: App that provides residents with information about their homes, such as maintenance records and warranties.
Frackio: App that allows residents to manage their subdivisions.
Nextdoor: App that allows residents to connect with their neighbors and share information about their community.
Mi casa segura: App that allows residents to monitor the security of their homes.
BirrexPro: App that allows residents to order food and drinks from local restaurants and have them delivered to their homes.
TaskRabbit: App that allows residents to hire people to perform tasks for them, such as running errands or cleaning their homes.
CondoVive: App that provides residents with information about their community, such as upcoming events and news.
Vecino App: App that allows residents to report crimes and other incidents to their property managers.
Habitat App: App that allows residents to connect with other residents who share their interests, such as gardening or hiking.
With the Blue Ocean analysis I was able to identify 4 categories that can be developed within the market. These are:
An application that provides residents with access to a library of educational resources on home maintenance and safety.
An app that allows residents to see services provided near their residence
An application that allows residents to pay homeowners' association fees and other bills with a single tap.
An application that allows residents to report crimes and other incidents to their administrators.
The quality of life in El Cielo is quite good, however, residents agree that there should be a sense of a close-knit community.
Residents are concerned about the responsiveness of the management office to reported problems.
Residents do not consider the location of the development to be very convenient for their daily needs, as the distance to the areas where they find their things cause them to make longer commutes, as well as not finding certain service providers and amenities to be in the area.
Residents think it would be wonderful to have a platform or newsletter that would inform about upcoming activities and social gatherings in El Cielo.
Residents would like to see clearer signage indicating how to get to certain places in the subdivision.
Residents believe that the creation of online platforms or community groups where they can easily connect and share common interests would further enhance the sense of belonging within the subdivision.
Residents believe that improved communication channels would foster a greater sense of community engagement and ensure that residents are well informed about the various activities available in and around El Cielo.
Residents believe it is important that there should be another means of communication because the phone lines at the booth are sometimes not available and do not allow them to speak to someone to report or notify them of a problem.
Residents agree that the information provided by the management office is usually clear, but it is sometimes difficult to follow updates. Timeliness is also crucial, but they would appreciate additional efforts to ensure that information is communicated in a way that is accessible and easily understood by residents.
In the discovery stage, I interviewed 9 people, 5 people who are within an age range of 35 to 65 years old and 4 people who are within the range of 18 to 30 years old. This interview was implemented for the purpose of defining challenges, goals and frustrations.
These in-person interviews were voice-recorded in order to be able to rehear them and develop an answer matrix to identify key findings.
Interviews
By creating personas, it allows me to better understand for who I am designing the product for. The needs of people in the same research category may vary. For this, I created two personas based on the previous research. By identifying their problems and needs, I was able to design the experience and interface in the best way posible.
Persona Maps
The User Journey Map is a graphical representation of the actions that the user must do in order to complete an objective within the app. This user Journey Map is worked along a mood map that focuses on what the user is feeling when doing the actions and what improvements should be worked on to enhace the user experience.
User Journey Map
Develop
A site map is a graphical representation of the architecture and the route that the user takes when using the application, starting from the different home screens of the app to all the functionalities that are available within each page.
Site Map
Making wireframes is one of the most important developments during the interface design process. Wireframes are very simplified screens where the focus is not yet on the visual layer of the design but on the functionality and structure that each screen will have.
Lo-Fi Wireframes
UI kit
I decided to use Amiko typography to accentuate titles and Inter for paragraph text.
When choosing the color palette, I focused a lot on the aesthetics of the app to be very similar to the brand that has developed El Fraccionamiento El Cielo Country Club, a palette with different shades of blue.
Deliver
After months of hard work and dedication, I created an intuitive and attractive interface that addresses the problems encountered. In this application, I have incorporated innovative and functional features that will facilitate the daily lives of residents of El Cielo, providing them with a unique and hassle-free experience.
In addition, I have paid special attention to design details, ensuring that each screen is visually pleasing and that navigation is smooth and easy.
High Fidelity Prototype
Validation
I met with a programmer who is currently working at Amazon and I did 3 validations with users. In this session, I demonstrated in person the functions of the developed application. These were their comments:
"Your app appears to need a complex system for the data storage, you need to come up with a way that the app is not so heavy on the users' phone storage." - This comment helped me to the ideation of making the messages and notifications inside the app to be deleted after a lapse of 1 week.
"I guess that the security alerts would be very annoying rather than a useful feature. I feel the app would “bomb” users with irrelevant notifications, and it is difficult to customize the settings to receive only relevant updates" - This comment helped me to section the notifications in different ways, the user will be able to see the types of alerts he/she would only want to receive, that's why the alerts have different icons depending on what type they are.