The day has finally come! The MVP Launch of P2P, the financial poo app!
I used Squarespace to create the site. Because it is on the trial version, this site will unfortunately expire in two weeks. However, I eventually plan on moving this to my main portfolio site
P2P is a personal finance tracking application that keeps logs of how much time and money is spent while the user is on the toilet.
Overall view of the prototype. This could also be seen as the flow of the application from left to right.
Here is the login and registration page. Ideally the application will have a web frontend as well so that users are able to check their finances in browsers. Income is a necessary input because the entire application revolves on how much the user makes at their job.
flow for @ WORK
The main functionality of P2P. The user starts when they are about to begin their bowel movements. They first must tell the app whether or not they are at work. A possible implementation would be to automatically detect whether or not the user is at work based off their GPS. As for now, it is a manual input. Once the user is ready, the user can start the Log.
flow for not @ WORK
The app will be a timer that also tracks how much money is gained or loss. The user can stay on this page to view their earnings/losses, or they can put the application in the background and do their normal routine. Once the user is finished with their bowel movement, the user ends the Log. The Log will then show the user how much total money was gained/loss and the option to discard or save the Log.
Calendar and Statistics pages
If saved, these Logs are stored in the backend. A Calendar and a Statistics page is provided for the user to analyze their bowel movements.
Left side Menu
In class assignment to create a quick wireframe for a chocolate box ordering app in 10 minutes.
Anthony has several bowel movements a day, usually once in the morning around 8:30am PST and once in the afternoon around 2:30pm PST. His experiences with his movements are different depending if he is at home or at work.
At home, Anthony treats his movements leisurely. He will take his time, choose the right music, the right video. His bathroom is spacious and peaceful. While he is in the middle of his movement, he will preemptively fold his toilet paper sheets, delicately, as if constructing tiny pieces of origami. After he is finished with the movement, he'll use his organized sheets of Charmin Triple-Ply and cleanse himself. His movements have become rituals. He stands up and sprays Febreeze odor killing into the air. The sound of the bathroom fan whirs on in the background.
While Anthony is at work, his environment is drastically different. Before he even thinks about sitting down to start his movement, he must first examine the toilet seat, closely and carefully, to make sure no impurity comes into contact with his skin. The bathroom stalls at work are also smaller, claustrophobia inducing spaces. There is no place for him to place his belongings. And then comes the added factor of others walking in and out of the bathroom. His once meditative ritual is disturbed. The toilet paper is single ply garbage. But over time, his magic circle will fully form. He'll be adjusted to simple joy of sitting. He will put in this earbuds and watch funny videos from the internet. He is still paid by his company while he takes these mini vacations.
Anthony tells me that he sometimes uses his movements as a motivational tool. If he can wake up early and brush his teeth in a timely manner, he will be able to take his time a top his special place. A moment when he can be by himself and his thoughts. Just him and a toilet.
Anthony
Age: 26
Occupation: Systems Engineer
Location: Seattle, WA
Problem: Anthony loves his alone time when he's sitting on the toilet. It's the only time of the day where he can relax, watch YouTube, and browse Reddit. However, he finds that he often loses track of time and overstays his welcome a top the porcelain throne. It can also get uncomfortable for him at certain stages of his process. His legs fall asleep, his back is sore, and there's also other health issues with sitting on a toilet for long periods of times. He also doesn't know where to put his phone when he wants to start using the toilet paper.
Goal: Create a solution that makes it more comfortable to relax on the toilet while also reducing the amount of time he spends on it. A dock that rapidly drains the battery of the phone's device. The dock will start to charge the phone once enough toilet paper has been rolled out. This encourages Anthony to take care of his business quickly and efficiently.
Allison
Age: 24
Occupation: Business Analyst
Location: New York, New York
Problem: Allison is a very forgetful person. She likes to go out with her friends often, to go out drinking, partying, and who knows what. She often forgets her keys, her phone, or her wallet all over the city. She also often forgets that she did laundry three hours ago and needs to retrieve it. Although setting alarms and reminders for these kind of things would be an easy solution, Allison would probably forget to do that as well.
Goal: Create a "smart" alarm that will remind Allison of important things to keep with her, as well as important things to do. The application would utilize GPS location to detect when Allison is on the move or stationary at a place. When Allison is leaving, the application will buzz and remind Allison of her important belongings. The app will also be able to detect common locations Allison travels to often. Grocery stores, bank, etc. Static reminders can be set for these special locations. Can also connect with Uber/Lyft to decide when to
Bryan
Age: 26
Occupation: Student
Location: New York, New York
Problem: Bryan loves watching movies at the theater. He also loves analyzing key moments in the film. However, he finds that taking down notes on paper or on his phone is too distracting and will often take him out of the movie experience.
Goal: Create an application that secretly jots down the time and video/audio with just a tap. The phone can be placed in movie theater cup holders. To be discreet, the user interface of the application runs in the background when the phone's display is off. Bryan only needs to tap the screen to record film moments in movies that he loves.
The assignment this week was to design a playful counting device that sits a top a typical office desk. My first step was to figure out some constraints.
I thought about what devices we use nowadays to count things and realized... because of digital devices, there weren't really that many instances where we'd actually need a device to count or keep track of things. And I later came to the realization that's because most people already carry a simple counting device:
our hands!
The device would be hand-like device that stands atop a digital LED display. The appendages of the hand would be bendable so that they would be able to be configured into the positions in the above picture.
high five!
fist bump!
The display's initial state is 000. As fingers are lowered or raised, the display would increment between 0-5. However, we need to count much higher than that due to our 0-99 constraint. This is where the high fives and fist bumps come into play.
If the user high fives the hand while the hand has all of its appendages up (high five state), the fingers will automatically return to the fist state. The number in the display, however, would stay the same. This would allow the user to continue counting upwards, and be essentially saving their progress every five increments. The opposite would happen for the other direction. Fist bump and the fingers will raise to a high five position.
The interaction of high fiving and fist bumping are both positive ones. I wanted to give them some sort of positive reinforcement in both directions since Marco and Maria are both trying their hardest to get through their tough work days.
An object I use almost every day is my Magic Bullet blender. I love it because: It’s simple to use, effective, and the best part is that it’s incredibly easy to clean due to its size. I make smoothies and protein shakes with it daily, and if I get lazy, I’ll use it to chop up my vegetables instead. It can even crush my ice cubes for me. Amazing!
Before this turns into an infomercial, I wanted to say that one thing I recently noticed was that the interaction of using this blender is a huge factor in what makes this object special to me. The simple action and pushing and turning the container differentiates this blender from traditional blenders with multiple buttons and settings. The physicality of holding down the blender and turning it connects me to the blender and to the food, as if I am magically turning the blades, rather than the machine.
The vibrations from the blender travel up my arm and entwines me to whatever it is I’m making, and thus I can sort of sense the consistency of whatever it is I’m making. The Magic Bullet demonstrates how physical interaction can be so important when designing tools for users. The blender could have had a button, but if it did, it would have created a disconnect, making it no different than a microwave. It actually makes me feel like I’m cooking.
Pick one up now on Amazon.com for only $31.99!
I don't really get shoelaces. I've probably spent a good amount of time in my life tying shoes, and it's always a pain bending down and lacing and unlacing and lacing and unlacing.
They also get undone so easily, and suddenly walking becomes extremely dangerous for the wearer. You could double knot, but then it looks bad and it's near impossible to undo it when you need to take your shoes off. Shouldn't all shoes have velcro or zippers by now. Maybe even magnets. I hope the future really figures this out
I have used the chat application for Domino’s over the summer. At my Summer internship at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I was on the Domino’s team, focusing primarily on chat bots. Before I started getting into the work, I wanted to test the Facebook messenger chatbot to see how it behaved. I remember my reaction to it to be lukewarm, the main reason being that the chatbot lacked personality and the chatbot’s sole purpose was to order pizzas.
I definitely feel like there are so many missed opportunities with this chat bot.
I used it again to see if anything has improved since six months ago. Unfortunately, it feels exactly the same. I did not expect to be at the level of Google Assistant or Siri, but still wanted some sort of interactivity outside of pizza ordering. Although the bot had a name (Dom), it had no personality or presence throughout the ordering process. My conversations with it began as if talking to a human, but slowly turned to curt statements and one word messages. Pepperoni. Large. Checkout. No. These type of chatbots seem to get rid of all the humanity that comes with meaningful conversations. Dom needs a change because its characteristics are the still those of the worst kind of pizza: cold and stale.