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Application Design 1 - Assessment 3 : Low Fidelity Prototyping and Testing

11 November 2025 -  14 December 2025 // Week 8 - Week 12
Racheal Tan Tze Rou // 0381005
Advanced Typography // Bachelor of Design (Hons) // Creative Media

Application Design 1: Assessment 3 - Low Fidelity Prototyping and Testing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LECTURES

Week 10
Decision Making:
  • alternatives 
  • uncertainty
  • high-risk consequences 
  • interpersonal issues 
  • complexity
Decision Making Process:
  1. Gather Relevant Information 
  2. Identify & Examine Alternatives
  3. Choose Among the Alternatives 
  4. Take Action
  5. Review your Decision & It's Impact
Decision Fatigue:
  • We have a limit amount of mental energy through the day.
  • When mental depletion sets in, it is hard to consider long term impact of decisions, and what will be the cost of a compromise
  • Decision fatigue sets in when we are tired and can't proceed risk and rewards correctly. 
Investment:
  • Cumulative or compounds towards a goal
  • Time & effort invested in a feel worthwhile 
  • creare a positive outlook towards the product

Week 11
Usability Testing:

Why test?
  • User Expectations
  • Knowledge Gaps
  • Problems
  • Feedbacks
  • Ideas
When & what to test?
  • As early as possible 
  • As often as possible 
  • Everthing unsure
Limits of testing
  • Not everything can be tested
  • Test depends a lot on the tester
  • Tests take time
Why planning?
  • Team direction
  • Consistency
  • Less problems
  • Easy report 
A Test Plan
Figure 1.1 ; Test Plan Lecture Notes

Participants
  • Target Users
  • Where or how to find them?
    • Live, online or in a specoodc location
  • How to recruit them?
How to Recruit?
  • Close to Personas
  • 3-5 Participants
  • Compensation
  • Better than nothing
Usability test example
  1. Brief the tester
  2. Get their info (if needed)
  3. Give task(s)
  4. Observe and take notes
  5. Ask follow-up questions 
  6. Thank and wrap
Feedback Sandwich
positive overview > details you like > things to improve > encouraging closure

Week 12
Design Principles
  • Balance
  • Contrast 
  • Emphasis
  • Unity
  • Proximity
  • Repetition
  • Alignment
  • Hierarchy
  • Simplicity
  • Negative Space

INSTRUCTIONS


TUTORIAL & PRACTICAL 

 
Figure 2.1 ; Sketches Practice

Week 10
Figure 2.2

Mr Sylvain also guided us step by step on how to use Figma to create wireframe 
Figure 2.3 ; Wireframe 1

Figure 2.4 ; Wireframe 2

Week 11
Figure 2.5 ; Test Plan

Goal

Can users search for specific food items without feeling confused or overwhelmed?


Logistics

  • Type of Test: Moderated usability test
  • Location: in-person on campus
  • Equipment: Laptop/phone, prototype/live app, screen recording
  • Duration: 5–10 minutes per participant
  • Number of Participants: 5–8 (standard usability sample)


Participants

  • Users aged 15–50 who order food online at least once per week
  • Must be familiar with GrabFood / Foodpanda / delivery apps
  • Should represent typical users (not designers or developers)
  • Preferably university students who often order food when busy


Metrics

Focused on the search experience:

Quantitative

  • Time taken to find a specific food item
  • Task success rate (Found it / Couldn’t find it / Needed help)
  • Number of errors (wrong search terms, backtracking, unnecessary clicks)

Qualitative

  • User comments related to confusion, difficulty, or overload
  • Emotional response (“easy”, “frustrating”, “too many choices”)
  • Clarity rating: “How clear was the search experience?” (1–5)


Tasks 

Tasks designed to test whether the user gets confused or overwhelmed:

  1. Search for a specific food item
    e.g., “fried chicken”, “ramen”, or “bubble tea”.
  2. Find one restaurant offering that item.
  3. Choose one menu item related to the search term.
  4. Add it to the cart.

ASSESSMENT 3

IDEATION

Sketches
Figure 3.1 ; Sketches
For the sketching stage, I began by exploring the rough ideas I had in mind for Splitwise 2.0, focusing on improving clarity while retaining familiar structures.

Wireframes
Figure 3.2 ; Wireframes
Based on my sketches, I translated the ideas into wireframes, where I started adding basic interactions and more detailed screen structures. This step helped me think more carefully about how users would move between screens and complete key tasks, ensuring that the flows were logical and easy to follow.

References
Figure 3.3 ; References
Throughout the design process, I continued to refer heavily to the current Splitwise app, as it already contains many practical and user-friendly features. Rather than changing the core functionality, my focus was mainly on improving the visual design by making layouts larger, clearer, and more readable. In addition, I referenced apps such as Tricount, identified during my market study in Task 1, particularly for its clean presentation and straightforward expense breakdowns.

Lo-fi prototype 
Figure 3.4 ; Lo-fi prototype
Using the wireframes as a foundation, I created a low-fidelity prototype in Figma, incorporating key interactions to simulate the main user flows. This allowed me to test the structure and navigation of the app without being distracted by colours or visual styling, keeping the focus on usability and functionality.

Usability Testing
Figure 3.5 ; Usability Testing #1

Figure 3.6 ; Usability Testing #2

Figure 3.7 ; Usability Testing #3
After completing the low-fidelity prototype, I conducted usability testing with three different users to better understand how real users interacted with the app. Overall, the feedback was positive, and users found the general flow and features easy to understand. However, they all encountered the same issue which certain buttons being too small, which made them difficult to tap and affected the overall experience.

Test Report 
Figure 3.8 ; Test Report
Based on the usability testing, I identified several areas that require improvement, particularly related to button size and visual hierarchy. These findings will guide the design changes in the next stage of the project, where I plan to refine the interface further and address the identified usability issues before moving on to higher-fidelity designs.

Figma workview link : 

Figma prototype link: 


REFLECTION

Working on this task made me realise how differently users can interpret design choices compared to my original intentions. Observing moments of hesitation during usability testing was eye-opening and pushed me to reflect more critically on my design decisions. This experience strengthened my understanding of the importance of testing, iteration, and being open to feedback as an essential part of the design process.
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