Portfolio

PlayStation App

Stream your friends on the go

  • Overview

    We knew going in that some improvements could be made to the app, the main red flag for our client was a lack of settings customization within the app.

    Our team of three myself, Darnell Baker, and Minji Lee took on work fairly equally.

    I leaned a bit more into my strengths of making sure the overall product was cohesive and maintaining consistent focus throughout the process.

    I also took this project to personally improve my component work within Figma and my skills to enhance a website with detail and capitalize on the screen space available on a phone.

  • Project Scope

    Our experimental project consisted of a design sprint with 8 work days. With an objective to research and improve upon the existing app structure. Adding any features that users strongly desire.

Research

  • User Interviews

    Through our user research we discovered the PlayStation app is well liked but they would love to see video streaming and additional settings within the app.

    We combined several one on one Interviews with App Store reviews, Reddit discussion threads, and Facebook groups to get the full picture of a PlayStation app user.

    This allowed to solve the users problems, mainly the limited functionality the app had outside of chat.

Sketching and Ideation

  • Starting point

    We focused on making small meaningful decisions that would expand the PlayStation app while still retaining most of the existing PlayStation UX and UI, leaving in their layout and make slight additions.

  • First Pass

    For our first pass at a new streaming page we wanted to focus in on encouraging users to watch streams immediately displaying multiple of their friends streams at the streaming hub.

Usability Test Insights

Testing our first prototype lead to some slight layout changes and icon adjustments, but otherwise were excited to start developing as more Hi-Fidelity mockup of our proposed adjustments.

Hi-Fidelity

  • In the final iteration of the PlayStation app we were able to maintain continuity with the current app while still adding new elements. The streaming home page is an extension of the chat functionality with integrated voice and text chat.

  • I took this opportunity to further develop my component work by creating informative components that took advantage of the screen real estate. Adding information for the user in easy to digest sections.

Full Prototype

 Next Steps

As video game streaming continues to expand as a market PlayStation should continue to expand developing connections between players through existing hardware and software. Through our research most players crave to be connected to each other in easy to navigate systems.

Hardware Store E-Commerce

W.C. Winks Hardware

  • Discovery

    W.C. Winks certainly has a serviceable website with contact information and well though out branding. It does lack a targeted E-commerce site to support online small business purchases.

  • Competitive Analysis

    Looking at a national retailer like Home Depot and a local hardware store similar to H.C. Winks. The opportunity for H.C. Winks to expand into selling niche products from highly trained employees was a high point for H.C. Winks.

  • Comparative Analysis

    To highlight some of H.C. Winkstrengths I looked at review oriented sites to make sure the website was covering more than just E-commerce.

    Michelin Guide and Tom’s Hardware let me look into how two distinct industries look at product reviews. From the Michelin guide, H.C. Winks portrayed a similar focus on providing trustworthy support and insight into the industry.

    Tom’s hardware provided a great look into how to perform detailed expert reviews as well as comparing items within the same market. A topic that can easily come up in hardware research.

Ideation

  • Initial Sketches and Mockup

    My initial sketches were a pretty simple E-Commerce layout with few changes going into the Lo-Fidelity mockup above. I wanted to focus on having expandable review content for users to quickly parse.

  • Usability Testing

    As this was my first significant project in Figma, I found usability testing to be essential for how my project came out. They were able to pick up on several flaws that I had missed and it helped me develop more skills and understand how the application fit together.

Final Adjustments

  • Close to Completion

    My initial home screen for the site. I leaned into a new color scheme based on my perspective of woodworking and hardware. Some of the design elements like the black bar under the main navigation users found distracting. However, the general layout I enjoyed including the deal highlights as the user logs in to promote the E-commerce side of the page.

  • Final Iteration

    Coming back to the home screen allowed me to evaluate what was important to W.C. Winks specifically. I decided to go back to their original color palette as well as clean up some of the lines and get rid of some excessive clutter on the screen to provide a more clean experience.

View Prototype

 Next Steps

I would love to expand this site further and continue to expand the review section to create an engaging, expert based product review page that helps drive the E-commerce side. By creating a space of trust, buyers will refer to the site as a source of quality information in conjunction with local buying experience.