Mingo Proposed Design-08.png
 

The Project

Mingo is a location-based social search mobile app where musicians can find new friends to form a band. It’s designed to quickly and easily discover instrumentalists and vocalists with similar tastes, goals, and skill sets.

“Mingo” is a play on the words “mingle” and “bingo,” indicating a platform where users network to find a match. Need a bassist? Bingo. Eli’s your guy.

Research

As a musician myself, I fronted a band in Provo, UT; home to the likes of Imagine Dragons and Neon Trees. I was intricately involved in the tight-knit music community there and I started forming an idea for an app based on pain points I observed.

To make things official, I recorded notes from extensive observational research, interviewed subject matter experts, and conducted user surveys.

Through my research, I narrowed down networking as one of the biggest pain points. Musicians need a networking tool that is designed to help them find those closet musicians who’d love to play in a band if they just knew what was out there.

86%

of DIY musicians struggle finding
the right bandmates.

71%

of bands go through a line-up
change in the first year.

57%

of bands have spent over 6 months with a vacancy.

BrassRookLive+Me.jpg

Research

Musicians need help finding those closet musicians who’d love to play in their band.

 
In addition to the survey, I interviewed several musicians one-on-one to discover common pain points.

In addition to the survey, I interviewed several musicians one-on-one to discover common pain points.

“I don’t even know how to
begin networking.”

“It’s difficult to find musicians who are equally passionate.”

 

Research Analysis

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Affinity Diagram

I took my findings to the whiteboard and constructed an affinity diagram to better organize musicians’ tasks and priorities when organizing a band.

Currently, musicians use word of mouth or turn to existing social media platforms to find bandmates. Commonly, they end up with bandmates that aren’t a good fit for their music.

 

Comparative Assessment

In addition to my affinity diagram, I conducted a comparative assessment that examined the tools musicians are currently using to network. This allowed me to establish best practices and expected features based on apps and tools musicians are currently using. The apps and tools I assessed were:

  • Facebook

  • Instagram

  • Spotify

  • App Music

  • Snapchat

  • Bandcamp

bandcamp.com

bandcamp.com

 

User Personas

Based on my research, I made user personas to help guide future design decisions. The personas encapsulate the behaviors, goals, needs, and frustrations I found most prevalent in the music community.

My personas include:

  • Indie Rocker Andy

  • Skilled Sarah

  • Tag Along Tucker

  • New-To-The-Scene Nate

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Red “Need” Analysis

The Red Need Analysis is a creation of my own, adapted from a Red Route Analysis. Here, I’ve organized needs by how often they occur and how many musicians experience them.

User Flows

I started my initial designs of the app with extremely low fidelity drawings. I then conducted usability testing to determine expectations and app requirements. I worked through several different iterations before I arrived at my final user flow.

Initial Mingo Flows.png
Initial Mingo Flows 1.png
Initial Mingo Flows 2.png

The kicker? I unintentionally designed something very similar to Tinder, but for musicians. It makes sense. People like what they’re used to, and it’s a social matching system that works. The difference here is that musicians are looking for people with the right musical skills and taste rather than a romantic match.

 

“It’s like Tinder… for musicians.”

Mingo User Flow
 

Look and Feel - Initial Concept

Mingo Proposed Design-08.png
Mingo Proposed Design-07.png

Arizona WaterSim

WaterSim is a touch screen museum exhibit that helps users learn more about their water supply and demand system. My team researched users’ existing knowledge about water usage, designed and tested prototypes of varying fidelity, and made recommendations for what could be improved. Based on those recommendations, I developed a final design.

WaterSimVector-01.png

Research

User Research

We conducted interviews with 3 rural adults and recorded the zoom calls. We discovered many valuable insights regarding how target users think and what their initial level of understanding is. We also used a marketing tool called Claritas Prizm to determine common traits in rural adults.

Zoom Interviews.png
 

Personas

We developed 2 unique personas based on the qualitative and quantitative data we gathered in our research. These provided a guiding light for our design decisions moving forward.

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Screenshot from “Third World Farmer”

Screenshot from “Third World Farmer”

Comparative Assessment

Our team completed an extensive comparative assessment that examined other online water simulations, exhibits, and games. This allowed us to establish best practices and expected features based on related websites and apps.

 

Ideation

Design Principles

Based on our research (interviews, personas, comparative assessments) our team created the following design principles. They describe the core values of WaterSim’s experience.

  1. It makes education clear and simple

  2. It makes education fun

  3. It feels personal

  4. It feels empowering 

Sketches

After generating a wide range of ideas, we chose the most promising ones. A few of my sketches are shown below:

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Prototype Development

First Prototype - Low Fidelity

Whereas sketching helped us agree on the direction we wanted to take the design, task flows established the working mechanics of our design. They provided a map for us to follow as we created our wireframe. The wireframe was low fidelity to allow for quick edits.

 

Second Prototype - Medium Fidelity

We developed a medium fidelity prototype based on our finalized wireframe to use for usability testing. The prototype used live links and interactive features to simulate what the final experience would be like. It still used temporary artwork to allow for quick edits in future iterations.

 

Final Design

Third Prototype - High Fidelity

With clear findings from the previous usability tests, I implemented the recommendations and created a high fidelity prototype using Adobe Illustrator. I created the artwork to not only “look good” but also address usability issues we discovered in our testing. The result is an engaging and impactful experience for museum goers.

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Bravemark

Video Game Development and Design

Bravemark is a 2D pixel-art video game that is as gratifying as it is difficult. Through extensive research and play testing, I designed this game to provide an engaging experience that is both empowering and challenging for video game enthusiasts.

Research

Observational Study

I’ve spent an extensive amount of time watching gamers in both structured and unstructured observational research. There’s also a surprisingly large amount of insights you can glean from watching video game streamers online and literally sending them designs to test live on twitch.tv.

A streamer from the UK playing a level I designed in Mario Maker

Years of Experience

It’s a funny way to put it, but it’s true! I have years of experience. I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid. All of these years of experience greatly contribute to my understanding of what makes a game engaging.

 

Retro Jam 2021 (my entry took 1st in appeal, 2nd overall)

Game Jams

Game jams are events in which developers have a short amount of time (often a single weekend) to create and submit a game from scratch. I’ve participated in a few (and even won a pretty big one) to practice game development and learn what works well and what doesn’t.

Ideation

Based on my research, I brainstormed different player abilities and level designs in relation to those abilities. I then started sketching out concept art for a story and world that would lend itself well to those potential mechanics.

Obstacle Ideation

Concept Sketches

Design Principles

Before going much further, I established design principles based on my research to guide my design decisions as I built the game.

The game will:

  • Be exceptionally difficult, providing engaging and satisfying challenges for advanced player

  • Empower the player to move and interact with the level in many unrestrained ways

  • Achieve difficulty through fair level design rather than limiting the player character’s abilities

  • Strive to accommodate the player’s intended input, even when actual input erroneously differs

  • Provide synergistic character abilities to further empower the player

  • Tell a compelling and engaging story with deep character development and relationships

Prototype

Game Foundation

I coded a first draft of the game with temporary artwork (literally just squares and rectangles), just to establish the physics and basic movements (jump, run, climb). Once I had that in place, I started creating pixel art to fit the jungle aesthetic in my concept art.

Initial physics and movements were established with just shapes

Character run animation (12 frames)

Character run animation (12 frames)

Coding and Debugging

With the basics established, I started coding the additional character abilities and interactive level elements. I created the associated pixel art in tangent. Each mechanic and game function presented new problems to solve with significant time spent coding and debugging each (300+ hours for everything in the level 1 demo).

Player object code for the initial demo

Interactive flower animation (10 frames)

Interactive platform tile set

Interactive platform tile set

Demo Level Prototype

I polished my game assets, wrote and recorded music, added sound effects, and built a demo level with a brief tutorial and obstacles of varying levels of difficulty. My goal was to create a demo with obstacles that challenged the player while showcasing the character abilities, thus achieving player satisfaction upon completion of each obstacle.

Testing

With the demo in hand, I ran play tests with pre and post-test questionnaires. I found 7 participants who fit my target audience.

A play test in which I took notes and was physically present to observe usability, player satisfaction, emotion, etc.

Test Results

Initial feedback was generally positive. Participants appreciated the challenge and felt that the level mechanics were engaging and interesting.

“I enjoy the platforming challenge. The mechanic with the green guy is also a creative and nice touch. I also think that mechanic could go a long way with new and innovative ways.”

“I liked the puzzle-solving mechanic of the game. That feeling of finally figuring out how to get to the other side is a good one.”

Despite the relatively positive feedback, I observed areas of frustration and took note to adjust the game in future iterations to mitigate those frustrations. Some of the more prominent ones are listed here:

  • Players accidentally walk off ledge

  • Excessive difficulty made the player feel like giving up

  • Player expectation didn’t match input

  • Sometimes confusing occurred for lack of feedback from the game

To dig deeper, I asked questions about each obstacle specifically in a post-test questionnaire. The questions targeted areas in my established design principles (how fun, how clear, and how difficult).

Obstacle 16 was a sweet spot. It was notable difficult, but fun and easy to understand. The result: player satisfaction.

Iterative Design and Development

Based on findings from my play tests, I “baked in” countless adjustments to the game to better accommodate the player. The character is excellently responsive, and the gameplay accurately predicts intended player inputs rather than exact and sometimes erroneous ones.

The result is a game that just feels good to play.