Work-In-Progress: What's Your Type

What's Your Type is a simple Android app I decided to make my first project for a couple of reasons...

1. What's Your Type is an opportunity to expose myself to Android's version of the SQLite database. I have a future project idea that would use a large database with complex relationships and this is a great tune up for that project.

2. The essence of What's Your Type is fairly simple (and familiar to my friends). That made it easy to dive right into testing the design with users, and re-calibrating the design, based on their experience.

When I began the project, I already knew I would want to:

• Design the software with users in mind, and...

• Make sure my design hit that mark by testing the design, on paper, early and often.

I've experienced many sub-optimal design choices and thought, you obviously never watched anyone try to use your product. I didn't want my design to suffer the same fate.

But honestly? Each time I hit print on a new set of interface designs, I was confident that I'd totally nailed it.

And then I saw user after user struggle to navigate each of those designs.

That's when I quickly developed a deep, emotional appreciation for placing paper designs in front of users early and often. With each redesign, I was so relieved to be moving boxes around in Inkscape instead of re-coding the application in Android Studio.^[1] It's the software equivalent of "measure twice, cut once."

What's Next

I'm excited to refine the design (code and interface) in preparation of having a few friends test out their very own version of the app for a month or two.

Post updated on 2017-04-29