UI/UX Design @ DesignAir
Gamifying the discovery process of design through quests and community
User Impact: Increasing access to design education and opportunities to students aged 13+
Adobe + Amazon College Creative Jam Finalist (5th out of 650+ teams)
OVERVIEW
Adobe + Amazon College Creative Jam
September 2020 (7 days)
Team: Cynthia Zhou & Sejun Park
DesignAir was created for the 7-day Adobe + Amazon College Creative Jam designathon, a sprint to explore opportunities for design access and inclusion.
As our own first foray into UI/UX design, we learned an incredible amount and walked away with a high-fidelity prototype and 5th place out of 650+ teams in the US, UK, and Canada!
Click the prototype below or follow this button to play!
Problem
It can be extremely challenging for high school students to learn about the many career opportunities in the design world. How can we inspire and prepare the next wave of designers for promising careers in tech?
Constraint: Design a solution in the form of a tablet app (Android, Fire, Kindle, etc.) for students (age 13+)
Solution
A charming RPG app that gamifies the discovery process of design through mini-games that introduce students to the foundation of design, a community of budding designers and experienced mentors, and quests that apply newly-learned design skills to the real world.
Click to play!
Process
As recent high school graduates in 2020, we had been part of the target audience not long ago. We looked first at our own experiences to find out what drew us to design and looked into what challenges other students around the U.S. face in pursuing it. We wanted to address these two questions:
1. How can we connect beginning designers with technical support?
i.e. access to resources and means with which to learn, practice, and apply design
2. How can we connect beginning designers with interpersonal support?
i.e. an environment that supports learning about the arts as well as ways to meet peers and mentors who are also passionate about design
We decided on a RPG app that would gamify the design discovery and development process for our student audience.
Visual Identity
Wireframe & Prototype
Features
Opportunity Area #1: Not everyone has access to digital creation tools.
Solution: Embed built-in tools on the app & offer subscriptions as rewards.
Opportunity Area #2: Early design education rarely focuses on accessibility & thinking critically about one’s audience.
Solution: Prioritize games that center on designing for physical & mental accessibility.
Opportunity Area #3: Youth often don’t believe their art belongs in the “real world.”
Solution: Bring opportunities to design for local initiatives or organizations.
Opportunity Area #4: Some youth struggle to find artistic community.
Solution: Provide a virtual town square to leave & receive feedback.
Opportunity Area #5: Mentorship is difficult to find/afford.
Solution: Build in a Meet a Mentor function where youth can ask for advice.
Learnings
1. User research is critical
As our whole team’s first ever UI/UX design project, we prioritized learning how to wireframe and prototype over conducting actual user research (surveys, interviews, usability testing) to make sure we had enough time to create the app itself. When final presentations came around though, we were surprised to see how much research and testing other teams had put into their design processes — a rude but important awakening to the impact understanding actual users has on UI/UX!
2. Have fun with innovation
We stood out enough to make it to the final round by turning an education app into a fun RPG, leaning into the quest and adventurer concept with all our features.
3. Take the leap
With DesignAir, we learned an entirely new design process, picked up new tools, and presented it in front of a panel of judges and 2000 audience members in the span of a week. There’s still much more to learn, but this experience was incredibly empowering — it inspired me to join the UI/UX design community at UC Irvine through Design at UCI leadership and two minors with the Donald Bren ICS school!