Ripple is a university-specific knowledge sharing platform that helps international students gain access to a pool of answers and connects them to a community of students who help each other by sharing their experiences.
After the analysis and concept ideation was completed (which can be viewed here) the app experience for the students was designed.
FIVE E’s OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
By using the five E’s of customer experience, we listed out the various features that would be available on our platform to begin with. We selected some of these features and created a user scenario with them.
USER SCENARIO- KEY APP FUNCTIONS
Creating a scenario helped us articulate the features of the app and identify moments in the user flow that require deeper thinking. We created user scenarios for both perspectives– the newbie persona (Suny) and the helper persona (Sofia).
STORYBOARDING
The scenario was then converted into a storyboard to visualize how the app would be used by the key users (Suny and Sofia).
INTERFACE & BRAND DESIGN
Ripple as defined by the dictionary means a series of small waves on the surface of water.
This word is a perfect name for our brand as it highlights the aspect of knowledge being shared among people in small waves (in the form of answers). The idea is to extract and spread this knowledge from people (in this case students in a university) with other people who belong to the same community.
BRAND STRATEGY
The colour palette is fresh and lively.
A shade of blue is chosen as a primary colour because it brings in the element of calm, trust, and wisdom. A shade of pink acts as a pop and brings in the feeling of a community. The secondary colour purple helps add strength and some seriousness to the colour palette.
The chosen typeface is a simple sans-serif font which doesn’t create any strong emotions and can be interpreted the way an individual wants.
CARD SORTING
By using the card sorting method, we were able to classify the information into the necessary categories for our app’s pool of knowledge. Since the app would create large amounts of content based on the questions asked by the users, it was important to have defined categories to be able to make the information more presentable and understandable to the user.
WIREFRAME SKETCH
We started by sketching all the possible screens we might need to fulfill the scenario we created previously. As a team, we then made sense of the user flow by combing the wireframe sketches and creating a cohesive app experience.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
VIDEO EXPLAINING HOW THE APP WORKS
To view the detailed research process for Ripple, please click here.