Apollo is a project management website for project managers and customer support teams that utilizes a simple, unified layout and UI design which allows users to focus on managing their work in an effective and intuitive way. Users will be able to create and manage tasks, create different views to view their tasks (e.g. seeing their tasks as a list, calendar, or board), track time spent on tasks, keep track of customer or client details, and create custom reports that give them insights into their productivity.
The low-fidelity sketches of the design consist of:
After completing the initial design, I created a survey that included a set of questions related to each page of the initial design. These questions were designed to be open-ended and to elicit detailed feedback from participants. A couple examples of the questions are, "Would you find this view/feature beneficial to you?", and "Is there anything you would do to improve this view/feature?". I then recruited 19 participants to partake in the survey, which could be done online. Once the surveys were completed, I collected and analyzed the data, using a qualitative data analysis software called Useberry. The results of the survey were then used to inform and improve the design of the product.
The design features a simple, and intuitive layout in order to reduce the time it takes users to learn the website, so as to make their workflow an easy, thoughtless process. This allows users to focus more on their work, rather than fighting a system that doesn't take their needs into consideration. The final design includes 3 different task views that the user could chose from: (1) a list view, (2) a calendar view, and (3) a board view. This allows project managers and customer support teams to select the view that suits their needs best. The task page itself is designed to be a pop-up layout in order to reduce the amount of trailing breadcrumbs the user must click through in order to view a task page. This allows the user to engage with a task quickly, without losing their place once they are finished with the task. Lastly, the project page is highly organized and includes a collection of related tasks that pertain to a given project.
It has been interesting to see how my thoughts have changed since the start of this project. While the overall focus of the project has remained the same, the design choices that I made along the way certainly changed as I researched other project management websites and gathered feedback from users. My thinking shifted to what I wanted to see in a project management site, to what the users thought would be most helpful to them. At this point, I don't think there would be anything I would change about the project. I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish, and I am only going to continue to work on the design. The next step for the project is going to be making modifications to the design according to the last round of user feedback, and then I'll get started on building out the fully functional website. Once the site is built, I'd like to recruit users for usability testing, and I'd also be interested in getting feedback from other school faculty or professionals! I'd love to get their professional opinion on the design and how useful they find it.
This class format was exactly what I needed in order to accomplish my goals for this project! I loved the simple format of the class: designing, then critiquing, and then iterating based on that feedback. The only thing I wish is that we had longer to work on it. It was extremely helpful to hear what other students and users had to say about the design, as it helped shape my thinking about how the site should look and work.
My one big takeaway from this class is that understanding your user's needs is extremely important when trying to design a site or application for a specific user base. Once I understood what my user's needs were, it helped guide my thinking and how I approached solving specific problems in the design.
This design feels incredibly comfortable and familiar and like something I would use atmy job everyday. It's the kind of application that I could picture myself clicking through without muchthought, which is exactly what an application like that should be like.
One of the things I really liked was all of the different color coding for various things like labels, statuses, progress bars, and diagrams. The software truly feels like a premium software for what (I assume) PM's need to do, and I think it is a real contender for replacing your current system.
This project looks really good. As I previously said, it's very well thought out andcovers all of the aspects I can think of regarding project management. I think the additional adjustmentsare definitely helpful as well.
The level of depth this project has is truly appreciated. No matter what element I click,it takes me somewhere. The visual design has come out beautifully. I like the list, calendar and boardview. The calendar view looks amazing. I like the phases that depict 4 phases with 4 colors in the projectssection. (1000 brownie points for The Office references)
Hi Josh, You have done a really nice job building out these pages. I like how you haveadded the archives page as some of those jobs might need to be reopened again in the future. The MyTasks "board" page is by far my favorite way to view everything. As mentioned before, I am familiar withother project management tools and this layout and user interface seem to work very nicely. Great job!
