Client
2016 Android Summit Hackathon
“The Purple Team”
Development
Purankar Supriya, Asit Tiwary, Mary Grimes
Concept, Strategy, Branding & User Experience
Kim Spencer
Problem
Create an app that will help those hit hardest by the last recession. Design and build in 24 hours.
Action
As teams formed, my group sat around the table and threw out ideas. I lived in a city filled with an eclectic mix of people of all races and socioeconomic background. I could see people that were struggling from my front porch so this prompt resonated with me. I threw out this idea of helping people understand how their finances should work and how they should be spending their money to best help themselves.
The team liked this idea as well and so we got to work brainstorming ways in which to provide support to these potential users. Using a white board and lots of post it notes, we began throwing anything and everything on the board until we found the ones that stuck. We identified three core areas and I surprised myself with how quickly I came up with a name.
The concept for Buoy was born, an app designed to educate individuals living paycheck to paycheck. The app consisted of three main sections:
- Messages – Keeps users informed about their bill status, offering encouragement, advice, and warnings as needed.
- Bills Due – Organizes bills by their status, advising which can be delayed and which cannot.
- Balances – Prioritizes bills by importance, such as placing rent or mortgage at the top, helping users make informed decisions about payment priorities.
Post-MVP, the app would connect to users’ accounts, allowing them to schedule and pay bills directly. It would also offer local resources for at-risk individuals and families, such as food banks, rent/mortgage assistance programs, and community services.
Results
The goal was to have a working prototype and we were provided with APIs that we could utilize for data. I got to work designing the experience. Remembering that Google’s Material Design provided templates and sticker sheets, I used this resource to design more quickly.
While my teammates worked on the code, I pulled together high fidelity flows. I was able to have the much of the overall UX laid out but still needed to refine graphical elements. By the end of the 24 hours, we were just short of a fully working prototype but we had enough completed to show how it would function and the goals it would achieve.
We tied for second place.
Skills
- Rapid ideation
- Wireframes
- UX strategy
- Android
- Design strategy
- UI design
- Illustration