Case Study
Collaborative Note-taking App
Students nowadays have a stronger desire for more effective remote knowledge sharing and collaboration. Noterite is a win-win for both schools and students.
Lead Designer (Research, User flow, Ideation, Wireframes, Visual Design)
These days, plenty of schools have utilized new technology into their learning methods using tablets or laptops to engage students more. Thanks to that adaptation, sharing knowledge and collaborating between students has become easier to achieve success in their academic performance.
With the convenience of technology, students now have an even stronger desire for a more powerful collaborative tool to share knowledge with their peers more effectively. For this project, I wanted to come up with an app solution that would improve their study environment through a collaborative note-taking platform.
Find ways to engage students
Think of context of use
Methods to present the information
Right platform for my app: mobile versus tablet
Before jumping into the project, it was important to define success and understand the problem. As I was redefining the objectives, problem and challenges in my own sentences, I started to get a more clear context on the problem I needed to solve. After understanding the project, I began brainstorming, writing down any ideas that came to my mind.
This process gave me a chance to further expand my ideas. I separated my mind map into 5 different categories, collaboration, note-taking, In-class, engaging, & miscellaneous.
Note-taking: The product must function well as a note-taking app with basic and essential features such as writing/drawing styles, tables, or even math symbols for math students. It was time for me to think about the fundamental root of the app, going back to basics.
Collaboration: For students to share knowledge and work together with peers, I had to make sure the app covers the collaboration feature properly.
In-class: I made this category to deeply think about the context of the use. As the target audience is students, the app should be usable and optimized for the school purpose.
Engaging: I wanted to find ways to engage students with my solution. In other words, it could also be success points or advantages over other apps.
Miscellaneous: In this category, I listed other basic functionalities such as sign-up methods, settings, etc. I also wanted to throw ideas in here without limiting my thoughts so I named it 'Miscellaneous'.
I conducted a competitive analysis to ensure I came up with a competitive product with advantages, and learn how other competitors solved problems. I picked three biggest note-taking apps, EverNote, OneNote and Apple Notes.
The analysis consists of 5 chapters, Introduction, each chapter about strengths and weaknesses from the 3 apps, takeaways from analysis, and competitor analysis matrix. I tested out all of their products and listed my findings. Then, I highlighted items that had a huge impact on me for takeaways.
After evaluating my three competitors' pros and cons, I listed every feature of my product and checked if any of those apps also provides the same features. This matrix helped me not only figure out a market fit for my product but also decide what features I should have out of all the ideas from mind mapping.
At this point, the business aspect was shaping up, but the mysterious area still was the users. To have better understanding of them, I decided to do a user interview with my friend, Pauline who is studying Jewellery Art and Design at Vancouver Community College. Based on the the interview, I also made a user persona for my reference.
The major discovery from this interview was that I found the most ideal platform for my solution. I was debating which device should be oriented first for my app between tablet and mobile. It would have to be compatible for both in the end, but it was important to know on which device users would find my app to be more usable, given the specific context.
She expressed that for note-taking, she prefers using paper and a pen or a keyboard because mobile typing is not as fast as those options. Other concerns regarding mobile were 1) phone screens are too small for note-writing, 2) and, some teachers might ban using phones in class. For those reasons, she would choose a tablet if she was going to use any electronic device for note-taking at school. Tablets are big enough, look more professional, and even have a compatible keyboard. Drawing is also easier with tablets. I felt all her frustrations and decided to develop an iPad version first for the users.
I started making a user flow and sketching layouts. The main UI that would present the note-writing information was the most challenging piece as it contains a lot of menus in one screen. Two major problems that I faced were:
Problem 1: Placements of the add note, remove note, and back buttons
Problem 2: Placement of a tab bar that changes menus in its sub-menu bar
I decided to do a design sprint. I set a timer for 10 minutes and forced myself to come up with 3 different layouts. This way, I came to approach problems in different ways and experiment. Then, I was able to address why some did not work certain ways. Then I wrote a series of questions regarding those problems to find answers. It put me in a situation where I had to think more logically and answer each question, reflecting my failed attempts. Through this problem solving process, I was able to get a sense of what the layout should look like.
Before jumping into designing, lo-fi wireframing step was crucial to see if the layouts and flow made sense when they were translated onto a digital screen.
Firstly, I needed to come up with style keywords that would set the tone of Noterite, considering my target audience. Then I started looking for the right looks for those keywords, using resources online. For example, for colours, I used Adobe Color. I saved a bunch of colour schemes that would match Noterite, and once I have enough, I applied each scheme to my designs to find the one that works best.
Becoming an advocate for both business and users: I needed to consider both business and user's perspectives. I tried to do my job thoroughly as a product designer with my competitive analysis, user research and designing. Especially from the analysis, I got to study other competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and that data became a valuable reference for my product.
