Before this class, I did not have the confidence to feel like I could design good software for users. I had taken a couple HCI courses before, in particular CS 278 and CS 147. However, I still did not feel like I had the skills to create a product that would have a pleasant user experience. I liked that every assignment we had added value to our final product. I rarely felt like we were doing busy work and I enjoyed the homework we were assigned. I never incorporated drawing as steps in my software design processes, but this class made me realize how important sketches are. The Sketch Notes and doodling aspects of the course were probably my favorite parts!
Moreover, I loved that this class covered so many aspects of design, including ethics. My other CS courses have barely touched on this topic if at all. Although I don’t know if I have any answers yet to the ethics questions we’ve explored in class, I am now more cognizant of these design issues and think about them a lot more even in my daily life. I also appreciated that these ethics questions were incorporated into the design of our products. Because every Thursday section had an hour devoted to these topics, we were able to think about ethics throughout the entire development process of our apps.
For our project, our main nudge was giving users reminders to complete their Truths and Dares. We give users the option to get notified and they can also set their own reminder schedules. This was done in the hopes that users would not feel annoyed by our notifications. I also think the concept of Truth or Dare has this intrinsic nudge of pressuring people to choose Dare. Thus our users may feel that pressure to take a risk and choose the Dare challenge. I think it was a good idea for us to not include a social aspect for our app, which may nudge people to choose Dares even if they are uncomfortable with them. I still think that it could be a fun aspect of the app that could be fleshed out in future work. However, I do think that giving the users the option to open both the Truth and Dare prompts reduces that pressure. If users are worried about completing that day’s Dare, they can always flip over the Truth card and accept that challenge instead. Also, framing both options as challenges helps tamper down the idea that Truth is the safe, easy option while Dare is the exciting, challenging option. We thought a lot about the design of this feature since it is our core functionality, and I’m satisfied with how it turned out.
Now, I am more confident about my abilities as a designer and engineer. Before, design was more of an after thought for me, since I did not think I had the background to properly design a good product. Moving forward, I want to be a lot more intentional in my design choices. It is not enough that the software “works”, it is important that it actually provides value to its users.
