
Bear w/ Me App Project

Course: Information Design Studio III: Designing Interactive Systems
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We were prompted to create an app where the central interaction reflects our personality in some way. Using Balsamiq, I created a mid-fidelity prototype of an app where users can interact with "Lena bear" and discover that I'm not a morning person. This all started with sketching some ideas!
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First Set of Sketches:
My initial ideas for presenting some aspect of my personality through an app interaction.

IDEA
CHOSEN


More Sketches!
Class feedback revealed that my first three ideas were the strongest. My siblings give me a lot of flack for not being a morning person, so I decided to run with that idea and created a number of design variations.


DESIGN
VARIATION
CHOSEN

Mid-Fidelity Prototype Version 1:
After discussing my design variations with classmates, the winning variation was the temperamental bear that doesn't appreciate being poked in the morning. Feedback prompted me to add the option to feed the bear.



How Lena Bear Operates:
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At 6:30am (an ungodly hour), the bear gets enraged after only a few pokes.
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At later hours, more pokes are tolerated.
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Feeding the bear can reverse the anger caused by a poke.
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Once the bear reaches beast mode, the user won't be able to do anything until the Lena bear reappears (which will be after a random period of time).

Since this is a mid-fidelity prototype, I had to simulate the experience at different times of the day. In the final app, the interactions will be based on the current time.
Mid-Fidelity Prototype Final Version:
Class feedback on my first mid-fidelity prototype revealed the following:
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I need to decrease use of text
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I should consider other output modalities (e.g. add app vibration when the bear "jumps out")
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Based on this feedback, I added picture buttons to get rid of text buttons and added a one-time alert.
(The second piece of feedback cannot be achieved in a mid-fidelity prototype.)


Click here to try out the Bear w/ Me app yourself!