Question: Who can I reach out to for community science app UI help?

nshapiro is asking a question about general
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by nshapiro | November 22, 2017 19:00 | #15227


Collaborators and I have been working on an app that can be used to read inexpensive badges to understand chemical levels in your air. The team has been working hard on creating a robust algorithm that works in many lighting conditions and with many types of phones. Here is the code for both the android and ISO https://github.com/publiclab/SmART-Form/

Currently we're focused on formaldehyde but the app could easily be applied to other chemicals like H2S.

We're finding that we could really use the help of designers and UI experts in organizing all of the information and input fields, and make using the app more intuitive esp for novice web users. Any thoughts on communities we could reach out to?



2 Comments

Hi, Nick - we've been starting to organize some user interface design materials and techniques on https://publiclab.org/wiki/ui, mostly focused on the PL website. But some of these methods are universally helpful. Maybe we could build out some of these with an eye to usability across projects, including tips and resources on:

  • user studies
  • design heuristics
  • activities for user input

What are your main goals? I think choosing a narrower one to start with may make it easier to begin -- for example, if you:

  1. wanted to find the "pain points" or design elements which need the most help in the existing UI, OR
  2. wanted to ask people how they think the UI would ideally work, essentially starting with a blank sheet

or something else. Navigation. Or the refining the UI for the very first few moments of use. Each could become a design project in itself, some broader, some narrower.

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Thanks so much, Jeff! I think we know that there are many many pain points. Here we have collected some of them https://github.com/publiclab/SmART-Form/issues/8 and so I think #2 is what we are looking for--understanding how the UI would work ideally as I worry that if we fix pain point by pain point we might end up with a total redesign but through a much longer process. We are working on putting in a tour for first timers, that should be done by monday-ish :)


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