Getting an idea of the app design and starting Minor Report 2 (11/6/20)

We all did quite a bit this week. Firstly, we continued to contact weather API companies and are just awaiting their responses. Secondly, our coach wanted us each to implement accessibility features into the app we made last week so we could show it off to her in our weekly meeting. We each adjusted our app to meet this. We found that React Native has some built in features to accomodate accessibility. The main one that we implemented was the ability to add alternate text to our components. This is so that when VoiceOver or Talkback are enabled on the smartphone, whenever the user hovers over the component then it will read our custom alternate text. This feature is crucial to bringing our vision for this app to life.

We also met early on the week to try to get a semi-final design layout for this app. We had some fun trying to come up with an idea that meets all of our design principles while still maintaining a pleasant user experience. Our initial designs are very crude, but they will help us to polish up our ideas. We will continue to build on these ideas, and we will make a formal app design diagram soon. The main takeaways from this design are the corner buttons at the top. We are still deciding whether the functionality of the buttons will stay static, or if they will change their functions depending on what screen they are on.

Our crude app design layout

As we started working on this design, we realized that we still had a few questions about how user’s prefere to use their apps. We cut our brainstorming session early to design a questionnaire to send over to our liaison so that he can distribute it to blind and low vision users. The questionnaire focused on what navigational design features blind and low vision users prefer to have, and what features they think are missing in most apps. We will use this data to develop our design further.

Finally, we have begun splitting up the tasks for Minor Report 2. We hope to finish a draft of the report early in the week so that we have ample time to improve it and to get approval from our coach. We would like to continue to work on our prototype.

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