Hi-Fi Protoyping

Following the low-fidelity workshop, I worked on bringing the app to life. The PopApp prototypes that emerged from the workshop served as the wireframes for the hi-fidelity prototype that I ultimately built. This new prototype was intended to be a second iteration on the idea. The choice to make the prototype "high-fidelity" was based on 2 reasons. The first was to avoid false negatives (Harrop, 2016). The prototype's goal was to elicit feedback on the actual UX of the app as opposed to a low-fidelity proposed UX. Secondly, the app was intended to be a design fiction of sorts. The prototype should help users to feel as though the app already exists and that the blockchain future has already arrived. The prototype aimed to support from the workshop participants and from Datami as a whole.  To build the this hi-fi prototype, I used a combination of the software Sketch (for UI Design) and Principle (for interaction design). 

As I touched on in an earlier chapter, disruptive innovations are largely ignored by incumbent organizations at the beginning of the innovation’s life cycle. Again, this is because disruptive innovations don’t typically address a wide user need, but address a smaller more niche user need that begins to grow rapidly (Christensen, 2011).  Therefore, this prototype aimed to solve a niche user need that research on blockchain suggested would grow rapidly in coming years. In an effort to mitigate risks, I vetted the logic and assumptions that this prototype was built on with industry experts. 

When speaking with John Crain, a UX Designer at BlockApps, I explained the idea for the sponsored banking application and the future human need that the prototype would be addressing. John affirmed that yes, the user need that the prototype was aiming to solve was legitimate and worth solving from a technical perpspective (Crain, 2016). Carolyn Reckhow and Justin Hanneman, also echoed the sentiment, but Carolyn went further to wonder if the government of Philippines would address this in their rollout of the digital currency given that it is such a fundamental problem (Reckhow, 2016). 

"The connectivity thing is a real problem to solve. If there is no internet, then yes, then Bitcoin does not work (Crain, 2016)."

Feedback

I received 2 separate instances of feedback on the prototype that I developed. The first round of feedback came from the participants of the earlier lo-fi workshop. Their response to the prototype was unanimously positive. In regards to the functionality of the prototype, it was uncovered that Datami’s back end should be able to support the ad functionality that is a core feature of the prototype with relative ease. Minyan, a developer at Datami, suggested exploring the rotation of the ad space (Shi, 2016). Due to the fact that the ad is such a central part of the UI (which was judged to be necessary to incentivize advertisers enough to support the users data usage cost) a static image might become stale and lose its engagement potential by appearing on every screen. In a conversation with Robin, another developer at Datami and participant of the lo-fi workshop, the prototype helped spur a discussion on data privacy and security (Balyan, 2016). The app prototype featured an e-commerce store that, because it was being housed inside a user’s primary banking app, could potentially leverage data such as the users account balance to show them things that are within their spending range. This idea runs into some murky ethical waters and Robin communicated that he would not be comfortable with that kind data exposure to third parties. However, more research should be done on this topic as blockchain technology may provide a secure way to share some personal data with third parties without exposing identity. Mahender, the third participant of the earlier workshop, had thoughts on the UX/UI of the app. He suggested that the navigation of the app be moved into a menu drawer to free up screen real estate so the user could view more of their transaction history in a single glance (Korandla, 2016). 

When talking about the workshop with Minyan, I encountered what I believe to be one of the most important bits of feedback that I recieved throughout the whole process. Minyan explained to me how that going into the workshop, she did not expect much out of herself from a design standpoint but was amazed to see what the app turned into after the hi-fi prototyping process.

"[I didn't think my ideas would count], but I'm happy to know that based on our feedback you really made something look so great (Shi, 2016)."

In the second round of feedback that took place with the leadership team, the initial, in the moment feedback was encouraging. All three members of Datami’s leadership (CEO, CMO, and CTO) were in agreement about the value of the app and its relevancy to the Datami business. Feedback on the app quickly evolved into feedback on the overall process that I prototyped during my time at Datami. I will talk about overall feedback on project in a following section. 

Reflection

The drawback of this prototype was the distance in which it was created from the intended users both temporally and spatially. The intended user base was the future residents of the Philippines given that the government of the country has floated plans to move the national currency to the blockchain which will change the nature of banking and commerce for people who normally transact with cash. However, as mentioned before, the participants of the workshop functioned as adequate surrogates for our intended users given their familiarity  with the space and history in region. Because of this, the prototype development bordered on co-creation and thus feedback on the prototype bordered on user testing. 

The prototype did reach a reasonably high-fidelity and it was useful in the goal of winning support for the idea from the workshop participants. However, some of the features of the app were unable to be completed in time and thus a full representation of the UX was not achieved and I can not eliminate the possibility of false-negatives. Considering that there was virtually no negative feedback, I do feel as though the goal was accomplished.

In the attempt to win support internally for the project, I believe the separate feedback sessions between the workshop participants and the leadership was a missed opportunity. The leadership, while positive, did not share the same level of enthusiasm about the idea as the participants did. This may be due to the fact that the participants were part of the creation of the prototype more directly and many of their thoughts were being brought to life by the prototype. This was not the case with the leadership. However, I do believe that the enthusiasm could have been infectious in the moment with the leadship had the feedback been conducted all at once.

Final Presentation

The presentation consisted of a recap of all the activities and work I had completed over the past 3 months including both work I had conducted internally at Datami as well as externally (expert interviews, MIT Prototype Jam). The external work was largely new to the leadership team but was included as a means to establish credibility and proficiency in blockchain. I drew on my conversations with experts, my experience at the MIT prototype jam, my interaction with IDEO futures, and number of articles that validated the importance of blockchain in Datami’s industry. I was able to deliver a semi-functioning front end prototype that was a direct result of the design research and collaboration activities that had preceded it. The prototype was an idea that had been validated by industry experts as well as had support at the ground level of the organization through active design participation. The prototype was also relevant to larger macro-trends and also leveraged Datami’s core business competencies. The prototype delivery was, in a way, a design fiction. Not because it relied heavily on narrative or employed any overt storytelling techniques like roleplaying or cinema but because the prototype’s intended core users did not exist yet. The proposed prototype was a response to what, based on research, seems like an impending pain point. However, the prototype does serve a purpose in today’s reality, but its ultimate reason for existence is set in a future context. This means that the persona upon which this prototype was based is, for all intents and purposes, fictional.  At the end of the presentation I received feedback on the prototype and on the presentation as a whole. 

Reflection

Reflecting on this, I would have liked to present the prototype as a separate event rather than as the culmination of my time at the company. I believe this would help me elicit more focused feedback on the prototype. As mentioned in the above section. Testing the prototype as a separate event with the rest of the workshop participants may have been a better tactic. Again, even though the response to the presentation was wholly positive and encouraging, I still see room for improvement. The fact that I was in a room with only the CEO and the rest of the audience was participating via Skype is one issue. This severly limited my ability to engage with the audience as whole in the prototype delivery portion. Also, given that the app prototype was at a decently high fidelity, I believe the presenation may have benefitted from an added dimension of design fiction in which the prototype was the central artifact.