Design
CupEco
In my Design class, we were tasked to build a kiosk prototype that had physical and digital interactions that solved a major issue and has never been done before.
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After analyzing the issues we came across along with the feasibility of solving those issues, we landed in the Cafe retail space. After observing and doing our research, we noticed a large amount of waste created by disposable cups; Starbucks alone sends 1 billion cups a year to landfills.
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So to help coffee drinkers become more sustainable, we created a reusable cup kiosk system to combat disposable cup waste. Our kiosk dispenses, washes, and stores reusable cups that coffee drinkers will use instead of disposable cups thanks to a seamless user experience provided by convenient and abundant locations of the kiosks making the overall experience similar to using a disposable cup and throwing it away into a trashcan. Finally, we incentivize people to use the service by allowing users to rent a cup free of charge for up to 24 hours, with only small fees if users are late. In addition, a reward system could be implemented with the cooperation of Cafe's to further incentivize users to continue using the service. To make this a viable business model, we would charge cafes, offices, malls, colleges, and drink stores to have a kiosk in their store while providing user data to them.
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Below are slides showcasing our process and work.
Digital Interactions: https://tinyurl.com/cupecokiosk
Accounta-Buddy
Inspired by the successful challenge my brother and I made to fix our sleep schedules, Accounta-Buddy is a web app that uses monetary incentives and a partner system to review evidence of task completion that helps you and your Accounta-Buddy reach your goals.
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The requirements of this class project were to develop an app using an API and data storage for a specific target audience. Our target audience is working professionals that have no mental energy to improve other aspects of their life like health and relationships. We chose to use Google Maps' API to provide location data for the evidence tickets shared between Accounta-Buddies. We used FireBase to store our user data, location data, and media for its easy accessibility and data management.
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The class project was made in 10 weeks with a team of 4 with varying degrees of coding experience. My main role was a product manager developing the idea, researching what features are needed for the MVP, prioritizing which features to develop first, and documenting each version.
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Burnout
Focusing on trying to focus, my team of three created Burnout, a web app that keeps you in the right mindset to focus by using guided meditation and gamification to keep you off your phone.
Knowing that our topic was Mindfulness for our class project we did initial research to see what apps existed for a competitive analysis. After our research we were all inspired by one app called Forest App and its use of gamification to keep you off your phone but what we found that it lacked was getting users to into the right head space to focus. With this in mind we separately developed our own ideas and did Wizard of Oz and paper prototype testing. Afterwards we came together to refine one idea which became Burnout. In contrast to letting digital trees grow in Forest App, Burnout prompts users to start a flame by naming a task, setting a timer, and kindling a digital flame by doing meditative breathing into their devices mic until the flame is lit.
After developing the idea we created MVP's and tested our product with potential users; tests included Heuristic evaluations and A/B testing. At the end of 10 weeks we pitched our final prototype to a panel of industry experts.
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The technologies we used are Javascript, Bootstrap, GitHub, Heroku, Node.js and Google Analytics.
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Try the App (mobile optimized): https://a10-burnout.herokuapp.com
GitHub: https://github.com/vividavila98/ixd-skeleton
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