OVERVIEW

ResearchBefore designing, a competitor analysis and interview with a parent was held.

Insights- Use some sort of authentication, for example bankId, to ensure that users feel safe.- Renter/seller should be able to communicate before purchase to decide upon details such as

who’s picking up/dropping off the product- Product condition/quality is the most important aspect when choosing what to rent.

Task description”Design an app that families with children can use to rent things from each other”

Families with children need to buy large amounts of clothes, toys, pets, and books. This comes expensive and some of these things are perhaps only used for a shorter period. A more sustainable solution could be if parents would simply rent what they need for a period; and let other parents rent things they do not need anymore.

The following features should be available in the app:- Searching for objects to rent- Viewing the price of an item- Being able to see when the item is available for rent- Finding the shortest and longest period of rent (0-24 months)- View a picture of the item the user wishes to rent- Read a short description of the item the user wishes to rent

CIU196 - Mobile Computing: Home exam

FLOWCHARTS

Renting a product

Home page

Categories

Products

Searching

Search Results

Product Page

Checkout withoutsaved CC

Checkout with saved CC

Select category

UseSearch

Definesearch term

Select product

Select Subcategory

Savedcredit cardNo saved

credit card

My rentals

Create

Fill in information

Create product to rent

Uploadphotos

Selectcategories

My Products

Rent out product

DESIGN RATIONALE - RENTING

Create product page

The create page is for people looking to rent out their own products to other families.

The photos can be added either directly by taking a photo or by selecting a photo from the phone’s library. This reduce excise by not forcing users to switch apps to take pictures, and also lets them use images from the internet.

Apple describes in Views/Sliders that the slider input method is suited for values with a minimum/maximum value. In this case, its used to select Product condition. By providing a visible tooltip above the slider, users always see the current value.

The location is by default set to the location specified by the user on sign up. It’s reasonable to assume that the product is available at the user’s location, but if that’s not the case, there’s a possibility to manually change the location to something else. This nicely follow Apples recommendation in the data entry chapter to infer as much information as possible from the system, rather than forcing users to input the data themselves.

The data entry chapter also recommends the app to dynamically validate data. To accommodate this, all fields uses inline validation, meaning that the user gets immediate feedback when something went wrong.

DESIGN RATIONALE - BROWSING

Home Page

The Home Tab is the main starting point in the app. It provides access to the apps main functionality, renting products from other families.

In ”Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug, its said that users looking for something generally falls into two categories. Search-dominant users and browse-dominant users. By providing quick access to both search and browse functionality, both types of users are accommodated.

As previously mentioned, the app uses hierarchical navigation once the user has selected a tab. By using this approach to category/subcategory selection, the app makes sure that users can easily navigate to their desired product category, while also making the system scalable if additional categories are added.

If users have a hard time finding what they are looking for, the search bar is easily accessible at the top of the screen.

Browsing Searching

When the users have found the type of products they are looking for, they are presented with a list of items.

Ordering makes it easier to find what you are looking for.

The main information available is name, price, condition and location, the data revealed in the user research to be the most important.

Browsing cont. Searching cont.

DESIGN RATIONALE - RENTING

Product page

In the Navigation Bars chapter, Apple explains that titling is sometimes redundant. Since the current context, the selected product, is easily understood through the picture and name at the top, the title was omitted on the product page.

Name and location of the creator is always visible. The blue checkmark next to the profile picture indicates if the users is authenticated or not, which have the potential to make users feel safer when renting from strangers.

If the user have any questions about the product, they can easily start a chat with them through the contact button. The conversation will be added to the messages tab.

By providing easy selection of the shortest/longest rental periods, users doesn’t have to manually scroll through the date picker to find what they want.

The select more dates button should open a modal that provides a better overview of the available dates. This makes it easier to find dates in the future, or select date spanning multiple months

If the user have rented something before, they can use a saved card. Clicking the change button reveales the same form as the screen to the left.

By showing a summary of their purchase, users can always double check that the information is correct before confirming their purchase.

Users can also leave a message to the renter, specifying details about the rental or just saying hello.

Rent page

DESIGN RATIONALE - OTHER

Messages

Profile

Manage rentals

The message tab lets users interact with each other before, during or after renting a product.

New messages are moved to the top and highlighted to make them stand out from the other messages.

When the user has a new message, a blue indicator is added next to the message icon. Apple writes ”Unobtrusively integrate status and other types of feedback into your interface” in the Feedback chapter. By following this approach when notifying users about new messages, the app ensures that they are not interrupted when performing other tasks in the app.

Through the profile page, users can update their contact information, profile picture and location. If a user is not yet authenticated, a message will ask them to do so.

The manage tab provides quick access to products you rent or rent out.

The segmented controls were chosen due to the limited number of tabs available. Apple recommends that there should be no more than five items on an iPhone.

Each row in the table displays who’s renting, and the current renting period. The contact button lets users write a chat message to the person.