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About Me

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Resume

Open Air

Open Air

Open Air is an application that connects people to local experts in various fields.

Open Air is an application that connects people to local experts in various fields.

OpenAir • Lead UX Researcher + Product Designer

Community Application

Problem

Modern lifestyles often lead to monotonous routines with limited socialization and exploration. Many people, especially those working remotely, are stuck in cyclical lifestyles or are frozen in place of doom scrolling. Most people limit their social engagements and activities to the known and rarely go outside of their social circles. It can be hard to try something new, especially when the users may not look like you. As a team, we sought to create a solution that would achieve two main goals: get people out of the house and help them find new passions and friends.

The solution? An app that connects people to local experts in their city so they can take classes, learn from, and form a community.

Meet The Team

Meet The Team

John Armistead

Lead UX Researcher

Product Designer

Jenne Parlato

Lead Designer

Ligia Erazo

Founder

CEO

Kyra Weinkle

Chief Operating Officer

Primary Research

Primary Research

Our primary research consisted of a Qualtrics survey of 12 questions. Each question had sub-questions attached if the user chose to provide more information. We received very useful feedback and were able to synthesize the data. For a full breakdown of our results and analysis, click here.

Our main objectives of the Qualtrics survey were the following:
• Determine if our Visual Value Proposition properly conveyed the product and the product's use.
• Gather feedback on useful and un-useful features of the application.
• Find out what activities people want to have featured on the application.
• Understand the priorities of our users when it comes to different hypothetical use cases.

We used this data to then create user personas and user stories that aligned with our target audience.

User Scenarios and Personas

User Scenarios and Personas

We broke down the personas into three different levels: Teacher, Beginning Learner, and Advanced Learner. These three areas will be our main types of users for the application. Giving each of these users a unique story allowed to us empathize and put ourselves in their shoes - giving us the perspective of what the user would want. Obviously, all customer bases have a wide variety of consumers, but this helped us generalize a large population and make educated decisions based off of their desires.

We broke it down even further by giving these users a scenario in which Open Air could be a solution to their problems. Our scenarios consist of the following:

Storyboard

Storyboard

Design Process

Design Process

My design process followed the Design Thinking system, where I used non-linear and iterative approach to understand users and creative innovative solutions. Our primary and secondary research helped us understand the users on a personal level by empathizing with them. We then transitioned into the “defining” and “ideate” process, where we used divergent and convergent thinking to organize our thoughts.

We wanted to make sure "ease of use" and a low barrier of entry were our two main focus points when going through initial design ideas. After all, our target audience's main pain point is that there is a barrier of entry when attempting new hobbies, sports, etc. Eliminating that could open the door to a massive market of people that want to be active, learn and try something new.

Wireframes + User Flow

Wireframes + User Flow

The next part of our design processes consisted of creating user flows through low to mid-fidelity wireframes. We iterated on the following flow:
• Upon signup, the "learning" user is promoted with nearby events that they may be interested in, generated from questions asked during the sign-up process.
• The user can filter events based on time and event type (and also a search bar).
• Secondary filter options include: price of activity, languages offered and group size.
• After filtering, users can see a picture of the activity, the ratings, price and length of activity. This is important so users can understand and see the important details of the activity from the initial screen. These options will be in a list so a user can scroll down and more will keep appearing.
• Clicking into a particular activity will prompt the user with more information and details
• Users can then book the event with one click and it is added to their calendar.

The following is an example of this flow:

Design and Prototype

Design and Prototype

We successfully prototyped the experience for our users. Feel free to click around within the prototype on Figma.

Click Here

I hope you enjoy Open Air!

We successfully prototyped the experience for our users. Feel free to click around within the prototype on Figma.

Click Here

I hope you enjoy Open Air!

@ Open Air

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