Group Work Can Be Productive

I designed and prototyped a social app called Gather with a small group of fellow designers last year. The idea was that if you were new to a town, or just bored and wanted something to do you would open up Gather and see where different public or private activities were going on. It was a more concentrated version of Facebook’s Events experience since it was geared towards large scale events, get togethers with a few friends and even someone looking to not go to the movies alone.

The idea of this app excited all of us in the group, but that enthusiasm meant that we all had a lot of ideas and opinions on how it should be designed. Now in most companies this wouldn’t be an issue because there isn’t often more than one designer in a group and if there is there will be a set structure of decision making. The fact that we were all on the same level and that none of us knew how exactly it should go together meant that we had a lot of ideas but not a lot of decision making. Finally myself and one other designer started seeing eye to eye and we were able to create a more succinct vision for this app.

There was a lot of discussion about the audience, as this idea fits well with a person new to a town looking for something to do, but that felt too small of an scope. We decided to add in a Feed functionality where you could see what your friends on the app were doing and also a Discover functionality where you could see activities that other users had made public.

But then what if you only wanted to go out to eat? or just go see a movie? or how could you easily remember a concert that is two months out you wanted a ticket for? So we categorized every “gather” into three categories: Food, Movie, and Event and each would be color coded Food (red) Movie (blue) and Event (purple) so at a glance you would know what you are looking at.

Then we decided there should be a calendar to keep track of all your events you have planned or plan on attending, and if you can keep track of that you should be able to keep track of what shows up in the discover feed. So we added a Settings page where you could set your interests, the mile radius of the discover feed, and how far in the future that feed searches.

Finally we realized it would be a bit of a hassle to have all this planned in the app but still require the user to use a separate messaging app to talk with the other people going to the “gather.” For our last feature of the product we added a chat service which was to integrate into your Gather Data to make planning with friends easy.

This was a fun project because we got to choose the app and once we figured out the decision making process the design work went smoothly. Working with motivated peers energizes everyone and produces great work.

Brian Talbert is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. The following article relates to projects in the DGM 2240 Course and representative of the skills learned.

Related posts:

Tenho corrido contra o tempo, em uma pressa incansável de chegar lá, sem saber onde é esse tal de lá. Acredito que o corpo, a mente, ou talvez a alma, ao perceber a crescente confusão de pensamentos…

When it comes to printed graphic design all sustainability ambitions seem vain. Thousands, millions of paper flyers are distributed every day, worldwide. The project is about how society interacts…

Kapan tepatnya saya menangis usai membaca sebuah cerpen, saya lupa. Tapi saya menikmati tangisan itu. Ekor badai yang bergulung menghempaskan laut air mata, lalu ombak menyapu pantai kesadaranku…