RTE Player Redesign: Blog Five
Teamwork & Collaboration
Each member of Saturn has a design background, which meant a collaborative working environment was a familiar and comfortable space for everyone. Saturn showed mutual respect to one another’s work and opinions, a generosity and open mindedness in constructive criticism, as well as a sharing of different skills and levels of expertise that maximised learning for all. Collaboration started in Miro and Mural, but we found Figma was the least restricted space to work in (slow computers were often a challenge when we had a collaborative session). We did group sessions to create research materials, prototype early wireframes, work on presentations, synthesise usability results, and critiques on each others work. Dot voting was used for decisions, and was our planned method should a disagreement arise.
Ethical Considerations
From the beginning we kept Nir Eyal’s Hook Method of habit forming products in mind as a cautious reminder that ethically, our app has potential to become addictive. We had a discussion around the Tarot Cards of Tech, which gave us a long term view of the implications making this mistake could impact: for example, relationships, environment, and malicious usage. Our latest prototype featured larger programme cards to create a more mindful browsing experience and avoid an infinite scroll. Our accessibility considerations could have been improved, but we will tackle this in depth in the next semester of the course.
Individual Contribution
Individually I conducted direct and indirect competitor analysis (as well as the RTE TV Guide), user interviews and observational studies, storyboarding, paper prototyping and visual tone of voice research (see blogs 1 & 3). My research also focused on the social aspects of the app, and this materialised in the development of the Live tab feature, which I worked extensively on during the prototyping phase (it was iterated with other team members). I contributed to meeting discussions offering feedback, insights and iterating solutions to problems on behalf of the team. A folder with links and images of my work specifically can be found on our One Drive.
Alongside the huge increase of knowledge from lectures and applying skills this across the project, some of my biggest learning came from my team members in their approach, attitude and professional work ethic. I can’t understate the importance of getting experience with such a well functioning UX team (guided by Michaels subtle but confident leadership), and what can be achieved with a balanced, hard working team that communicated exceptionally well with each other.
Tom was incredibly proficient working in Figma, and as someone new to the software, I found huge learning came from feeling out of my depth and having to improve quickly so I could collaborate effectively and contribute to the team. His prototyping work pushed the capabilities of what was possible in Figma, and maximised efficient workflows which the whole team benefitted and learned from.
This learning will show in my increased confidence level as I progress with future projects, supported with the hard skillset in conducting valid research, prototyping and usability testing that I am continuing to build on. I really enjoyed working on the RTE Player redesign and am proud of Team Saturns result.
References
Eyal.Nir, (date unknown) Hooks: An Intro on How To Manufacture Desire
Retrieved from Nir and Far, January 24, 2021:
Artefact, (2017) The Tarot Cards of Tec
Retrieved from Artefactgroup, January 24, 2021:
model/http://tarotcardsoftech.artefactgroup.com/
Eyal.Nir, (date unknown) The Morality of Manipulation
Retrieved from Nir and Far, January 24, 2021:
