Project Overview
LFI! Scrapbook was designed and developed by CARTE, Centre for Autism Research, Technology and Education. CARTE is dedicated to the research and development of new and innovative technologies that enhance the social and emotional skills of children and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Tools
Sketch, XCode (Objective-C, Swift)
Tags
iOS Development, UAT, Beta Testing, Wireframing, Game Design, GTM Strategy
Timeline
2 years
INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT
About CARTE
At CARTE, we are a team of researchers, programmers and psychologists who design breakthrough computer interventions using the latest advances in software and hardware technologies. The Centre's motto is new tools for different minds because we feel that working as a team, we can develop and deliver engaging, creative and inexpensive technologies that will improve the everyday lives of individuals with ASD and their families.
Project Goal
We wanted to create an innovative, engaging app that utilizes customizable game content to engage in visual learning techniques aiding in facial recognition and emotion comprehension.
PEOPLE ON THE PROJECT
The Team
We were a well supported team of 10. Our team was led by Dr. Jim Tanaka and was composed of developers, designers and specialists with psychology and computer science graduate and/or undergraduate degrees.
My Role
In this project, we had 5 main developers including myself that collaborated regularly on a daily basis. We also had designers and psychology experts to aid us in some of the research and implementation suggestions. I developed levels on the main game on the app, contributed to vision development, design, UI/UX, and led beta testing and workshops.
PROJECT CHALLENGES
Technical and Design Constraints
Gamification of a well-researched training technique
We knew the techniques we wanted to utilize but were unsure how to implement the constraints in a fun and engaging way. We used different packages to introduce varying elements in games, added gamification elements like scoring calculations, leader boards, animations etc.
Variety & Interactivity
Throughout the project, we realized that we needed some variety and interest in the project. We ended up including 4 different games within the app to improve engagement, playtime and utilize other training techniques to be utilized at home, in the classroom or anywhere.
Building for our Audience
We were building an app for children on the autism spectrum which led itself to creating a product for an audience that has tight attention spans and needs intense engagement and fun!
UAT & Beta Testing
UAT
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is for the purpose of ensuring that the product meets the needs of the end-user. We conducted smaller sessions throughout development and when presenting to stakeholders to ensure that the app was doing what was expected. We wanted to ensure any assumptions that may have been made in the development process were either justified, or revised to fit the needs of users.
Throughout the development timeline, we had ongoing user acceptance testing. These were typically done with parents and educators and would involve introducing users to the objectives, run them through test cases and the app. I and occasionally another developer would be on site to fix any testing environment errors that may come up.
Beta Testing
We were looking for technical issues, but also identifying areas for improvement in the design and usability of the app. These were recorded sessions over several weeks with children aged 5 - 17. I reached out, scheduled and invited the kids and their parents to our office over a series of weekends and depending on the child gave a structured or free form style of testing and guided questions. From this, we found some key areas of feedback:
- App crashes: the children were rigorous in their testing and providing overloading input that we did not account for in our original implementation
- Refined and simplified signifiers: when an action occurred we relied on signifiers that included words that showed it was complete. We needed to steer our efforts towards signifiers after a completing action to be animated, bigger and with words more resonating with the children like “good job”.
- Bug fixes: general fixes with animations, smoothness, and UX
Beta Testing Efforts Publicized
We were featured in the Spring 2016 Torch Magazine as the cover story. The article highlighted the dynamics between the team and some of our beta testing efforts in the community.
SYNTHESIS
Bringing the Data Together
I collected and presented all the feedback from the UAT and Beta testing and prioritized the feedback in our roadmap. We adjusted our timelines to account for these changes and held some brainstorm workshops with the team to ensure that we were communicating the completed action in signifiers accurately and succinctly while being interesting and engaging. I took time to research alternatives for signifiers and what we could change based on the feedback given. Using mockups I created, we iterated through ideas until we found one that we liked - dismissing tons of designs in the process.
Release
We put together our website and released it on the Apple app store. Over the course of two years and many ups and downs in the development process, we successfully launched the app with a collection of educator/pro-d day workshops and a launch party!
Shortly after launching, we were presented with the Reach 2017 Award for Excellence in Knowledge Mobilization for LFI and its impact on the community. The Reach awards honour the elevation of teaching and research and the betterment towards the students, the university and society at large.
REFLECTION
What I Learned
This was an incredibly rewarding experience and I learned so much about agile, iterative development, game design and user experience. The importance of UAT had a profound impact on direction throughout the process and nothing compares to getting your product in the hands of your user via beta testing.
My main learning was stepping back and reminding myself of the audience we were building for. I was trying so hard to ensure valid communication in signifiers that I didn’t build the best elements for our end user. After this project, I became much more user focused and it led me onto my journey now of being a Product Manager and an advocate for our user. Wearing the developer hat at the same time led to a clouded but eye-opening journey that I am grateful for.
Thanks for Reading 💛
If you’d like to hear more about my experience, feel free to send me an email–I’d love to chat ☕.
My Other Projects
If you'd like to see more, check out some of my other projects below!
