Amy
Cai
UI designer in Seattle, WA
Email:
acai@uw.edu
Instagram:
@acai.des
a.cai
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amy cai
Interaction Design Student
Located in Seattle, WA
Projects:
Bone Appétit!
Makeup Mate AR
ATD Recruitment
Suko App
Graphic Designs
Suko
Project Overview
As an avid anime watcher, I have struggled to find a simple and efficient way to record and share the anime that I have enjoyed in the past. I was inspired to create a mobile app that is suitable for the average anime enjoyer's needs. As I intend to study human-computer interaction design in university, I took this idea on as a personal interest project to learn and create simultaneously.
As an avid anime watcher, I have struggled to find a simple and efficient way to record and share the anime that I have enjoyed in the past. I was inspired to create a mobile app that is suitable for the average anime enjoyer's needs. As I intend to study human-computer interaction design in university, I took this idea on as a personal interest project to learn and create simultaneously.
Role:
Team:
Tools:
Timeline:
Team:
Tools:
Timeline:
UX researcher, UI Designer
Collaborated with Alice Zhang
Figma, Miro
2.5 months in Summer 2021
Collaborated with Alice Zhang
Figma, Miro
2.5 months in Summer 2021
Problem:
Anime enthusiasts have no way of efficiently tracking and sharing anime recommendations to their friends.
Notes from initial interviews
To begin, my partner and I conducted 8 user research interviews where we asked anime enthusiasts to go into detail about various anime watching, recording, and sharing behaviors. We drafted an insightful list of interview questions, and took detailed notes on each anime lover’s response. Our main goal with these interviews was to pinpoint what anime lovers REALLY want, andwhat they have trouble with. We compiled our findings and found some common themes. It is important to note that our user group was very limited in terms of age, and a higher level of diveristy amongst user age groups could result in different data.
Insight 1:
Participants trust recommendations from friends more than online recommendations
Insight 2:
Participants spend a lot of time looking for the right anime
Insight 3:
Participants have a heard time finding more obscule/non-mainstream animes
Insight 4:
Participants find it satisfying when a friend watches an anime that they recommend
Out of these insights, we found design opportunities. It was evident that the social aspect of the app should be an extremely important focus. We drafted multiple “How might we....” statements to tackle the main issues within existing anime tracking/sharing platforms in order to create our key features and reach our goals.
Suko: A social-centered anime app that allows users to both record and recommend anime in a simple, yet personalized way.
Home Screen
Watching, want to watch, watched, and personal lists
Read, add, share, or review
Suko features a simple, friend-focused interface that allows users to keep track of what they have watched, and find more to watch in the future. The main functions of the app include a quick access home page, a library for all of the user’s tracking needs, and a place to send and receive anime recommendations.
Request a recommendation, or send one to a friend
Swipe through recommendations to decide what to watch
Direct message for an even more personal option
Our #1 insight was that anime watchers tend to trust friends' recommendations more than online recommendations, but need to talk to friends individually for recommendations. The design opportunity that we discovered off of this insight was that we could design a function in our app that allows users to easily and effectively recommend anime to their friends, and request recommendations from their friends as well. We developed a easy, yet fun way to send and request anime recommendations between friends. A direct messaging system was also included for an easy way to notify friends that the user enjoyed their recommendation.
Highly customizable profile
Search and browse
To further meet user desireablity, profile customization features were added to heighten the social aspect of the app’s experience. The app also includes a simple search and discovery feature in case users want to learn more about an anime. Popular genre sections are included for efficent searching. Recent searches are also recorded in the app for easy access.
After developing our first prototype, we conducted user tests with four of the original eight interview participants to pinpoint any confusing steps in the flow. We created a list of tasks for the users to perform in order to test the intuitivity of the app’s various functions. For qualitative data, we asked the users to “think out loud” while using the app, and asked them a number of reflection questions afterwards. As for quantitative data, we timed the amount of seconds the users took to complete each task, and evaluated the usability of the functions. Again, we compiled our findings into a few sections of notes and got back to work! The most confusing task seemed to be navigating to and through the requests portion of the app, so we refined and simplified its functionality. Due to time restrictions, we were only able to test and reiterate the app one time, but it could definitely be improved and further developed with more user testing, paired with the expansion to a larger pool of users.