Final Prototype
Presentation#
Prototype#
We used React Native, Expo, and Apple’s Xcode simulator to bring our high fidelity prototype to life. The prototype is compatible with iOS platforms. The design of the app is most compatible with recent iterations of the iPhone (ex. iPhoneX and above). We recommend running the app on the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Video Demo#
Download: MP4
Instructions / README#
In order to explore our prototype, you will need access to the Expo app (either on a phone or a computer). The easiest way to run our app is using Expo on your phone and accessing our project prototype through the QR code.
Find the the full instructions in our README.Report#
Read our full report here.Summary and Next Steps#
We’ve reached the end of our CS147 journey. This moment is bittersweet, to say the least. Our team met as four strangers with little web development, app development, or design experience. After ten weeks working together as a team, we have not only grown close to one another as friends but we have also built a product together. Over the course of the project, we learned each other's quirks and habits—with such great variation in sleep schedules and timezones that ensured we could always count on having a team member awake at any hour of the day—so that we could work with each other to build an app that gives us a sense of pride and accomplishment. If we’re being perfectly honest, each week felt like its own rollercoaster, with interviews, slides, presentations, websites, and deadlines forcing us to work around the clock to get it all done. However, looking back, we can all unanimously agree that each step was worth it. Each week, no matter how grueling, moved us closer to building a final product that we are excited to share with the world.
In addition to our personal growth as a team, we also learned a lot about how to effectively design solutions to the problems around us. It’s easy to identify problems in your own day-to-day life, but it is far harder to listen to other people and understand their needs in addition to your own. The center of change is the people who can tell you about the problem in the first place. Perhaps the biggest lesson we learned from this project was the importance of listening to the people you are trying to serve.
A second pivotal insight for us was to embrace the weird and unconventional ideas. Time and again, we noticed that during our brainstorm sessions it was the truly outrageous ideas that shined. We learned that the most promising response you can get to an idea is “wait, say what? But how? Tell me more!” Sure, we could have made a social media app that connects users to a feed of stories from their friends. But we thought, “why not make buildings talk?” When asked why we thought this was ever a good idea, we’re not entirely sure. However, what we are sure of is that embracing ideas that seem unachievable in the moment is an approach that we will all carry forward with us in our future projects and endeavors.
Finally from our project, we learned the importance of being patient through an iterative design process. We learned the importance of embracing mistakes early on, as those mistakes allow you to evolve your design into a product that is better suited for your users. As a team, we have learned the value of hyping each other up when morale is at its lowest. Most importantly, we learned that successful design projects are the ones that have the users in mind during each step. By keeping our interviewees in mind at every step of the way, we could always turn to each other and instead of saying “do we like this?”, we could say “what would Participant 1 think of this?”
If this was a year long class (which it should be), then we would continue our iterative design process by improving functionality for users. We would want to ensure that users could search for stories anywhere in the world rather than just in Barcelona and San Francisco. We would incorporate a database that would allow users to listen to stories shared by users across the world within seconds. Additionally, we would incorporate some of our desired functionality that we could not implement given to time constraints. A navigation system would allow users to easily navigate to a story if they are close by. In addition, we would include the ability for non-English speakers to use the app by expanding the language options. Throughout, we would make sure to stay true to our mission of enabling cultural immersion through personal stories, empowering voices around the world.