Social Websites Aggregator- A Mobile Application Prototype

As part of my School project in January 2010, myself and three other students were involved in prototyping and testing a mobile application called SyncUp. It allows the social networking user to organize and manage communications from friends, family members, business associates and other contacts who are members of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare and Flickr. SyncUp allows you to sync friend lists with your phone’s contact list in order to call and text directly from the app.

With SyncUp, you are able to stay in touch with friends, family and other contacts. From the college student, to the overworked mom, to those on the go, SyncUp will provide a comprehensive, time efficient experience on your mobile phone that will keep you connected with the latest updates from family, friends, business associates and the world.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING PHASE

1. We used two different requirements gathering methods, interviews and an online survey, to accomplish our research. The purpose of both of these methods was to gather information from potential users regarding their mobile and social media use.
2. Based on the user requirements, we developed personas to communicate information about the end-users.
3. We also conducted competitive analysis to identify the current trends and anticipate the future needs. The analysis was performed on two mobile applications-8Hands Mobile and Bebo.

CONCEPTUAL MODELLING PHASE
Our process in developing the models included first determining the usability goals,identifying the desired features of the application, developing the use cases and creating design mockups. Group analysis of the conceptual models assisted in identifying any design flaws or potential usability issues and for offering suggestions and improvements.An image of the Conceptual Model is shown below

Conceptual Design

WIREFRAMING PHASE
We then prepared wireframes for the same.A wireframe of one of the screens is shown below

PROTOTYPING PHASE
Based on conceptual model and wireframes we created prototypes.Prototyping tool used was Balsamiq.

Prototype

USABILITY TESTING PHASE
In this phase our goal was to test our prototypes with a certain set of users, modify our prototypes based on participant feedback and then retest using the same participants to evaluate their user experience and the effectiveness of our improved designs.We employed think-aloud protocol. The prototypes presented to the user were low fidelity prototypes and were presented to the user in printed form. We included a prioritized list of problems and their respective solutions. In addition, we included observations noted during our test and revised screen shots of our prototype.

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