I thought I'd take stock of my progress so far on the project, although this post will be shorter than most I've been producing. In general, my post has been far too labour intensive to keep up in their current format and I intend to switch to a single post a week, I'm going to be heavily involved in the production of the prototype moving forward, and a post on the weekly material and a separate post on the challenge activities seems unsustainable and I'm concerned about burnout. I would rather discuss the course content as it relates to my artifact moving forward.
SMART OBJECTIVE
From week 6 moving forward, switch to a single post a week.
Focusing on a single Persona
The time has come to focus on a single persona. I've previously tried to serve both personas and it's pulling me in two different directions. I would like to focus on the persona of Phil, even though I feel I can empathise with him less. The reason is I can still see more opportunities to innovate with this persona than with Tom - Who is a time-poor introvert who commutes extensively. The skill-hunting nature of Phil means he could benefit from variable rewards in Nir Eyals Hooked Model (2014). I also like a challenge and would like to improve the onboarding to be more compelling for Phil, so that he can see the benefits of volunteering straight away.
Dropping Gamification
I feel I went overboard with my exploration of Gamification in week 4 and the potential issues with using it for civic duty. Also as mentioned by Carlos and Gareth, Gamification should be an additional layer rather than a core mechanic so I'm making the decision to focus on the act of skills tracking and skills acquisition as the core of my concept and leave gamification out of the concept. There will be certain elements that I will retain, such as rewards, and these will be in the form of skills acquired. Instead, I would like to explore the idea of integrating with LinkedIn. I had previously spoken to Carlos about the idea in one of our group sessions (Santana, 2023) I've been looking into synchronise data with a LinkedIn profile via the LinkedIn developers API -which allows for the creation, update, and deletion of users skills (Microsoft, n.d.). Clearly, I'm not looking to code this up myself, but the idea that it is possible will allow me to explore it as a concept.
Feature inventory for the App
It's also time to take stock of what I want the app to achieve for Phil and what feature it should have. Looking at a features inventory for the app, I would like it to have:
Search Functionality
LinkedIn Integration
Profile Management
Endorsements from other users
Endorse other users
Rating system for others
Skills HQ - Delete, update, add skills
Skills prioritisation
Auto-generated volunteering recommendations based on skills
simple signup
messaging functionality
previous volunteering history
Get testing as soon as possible
I need to get a testable version of at least a couple of flows. At the moment I have the onboarding in a position I can get feedback, and I have started on the Skills HQ and Search functionality as wire-flows, as I feel these are key to the success of the app.
References
EYAL, Nir, 2014. Hooked: How to build Habit-Forming Products. London: Penguin Random House UK.
Microsoft. n.d. ‘Profile Edit API: Skills. LinkedIn Learning’. [online] Available at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/linkedin/shared/integrations/people/profile-edit-api/skills [accessed 21/04/23]
SANTANA, Carlos. 2023. ‘UXO720 UX Design - Week 5 Group Session 2 - Sunday 26th February 2023 | 15:00 GMT’ [Online Group Session]. UXO720 for MA User Experience Design. Falmouth: Falmouth University, 26 February 2023.
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