Redefining Co-Working Through Intuitive Design
A streamlined low-fidelity booking system prototype, designed for seamless user navigation and intuitive booking experiences
About the project
As part of my study assignment, I have designed a user-centered interface for the OFF app, an app to book co-working spaces. This project was informed by extensive user research, resulting in a concept that meets the needs and preferences of the target audience. The target groups for this app are "thinkers & doers", business people, start-ups, freelancers, and students.
OFF co-working is designed to be a collaborative and inspiring space that offers different areas for work, learning, innovation, presentation, motivation, and workshops. These areas include:
- A welcoming entrance and waiting area
- Individual single workstations for focused work
- Individual focus areas with more privacy (just a chair, no desk)
- A lounge area with both individual and group workstations
- A meeting room for 6 people
- A conference room for 12 people
The scope is to come up with a concept for an app which allows one to place, change or cancel reservations. Based on the concept, paper prototypes are being developed which then transform into clickable low-fi visual designs.
Baseline & Framework Definition
The goal of the project was to deliver an exceptional user experience by following the principles of Goal Directed Design. Based on the insights gathered in the user research, we defined the form factors and functional and data elements of the user-interaction framework.
Key Path Scenarios
To ensure that the app meets both the business needs and the user needs, we have identified several key path scenarios. These journeys help us to understand the essential functions required and validate the early prototypes. The following is an example of a key path scenario:
"Laura, the founder of a Swiss start-up, is preparing for an important investment round that will take her company international. She has a meeting planned with potential investors in Zurich in a week, with some attendees joining virtually. To ensure a successful presentation, Laura needs a suitable meeting location with top-notch technology.
Laura opens the OFF app, where she has previously booked workspaces in Milan and Zurich. She navigates to the booking menu, selects Zurich as the location, and checks the availability. She discovers a conference room that is available on the date she needs it.
Laura confirms that the room meets all of her requirements, and quickly books it for an hour. She is confident that she can make any necessary changes or cancel the booking if her plans change. With the help of the OFF app, Laura can focus on impressing her potential investors and securing the future of her company."
Paper Prototypes
To kick off the design process, our team utilized paper prototypes as a low-cost and simple solution for testing out various ideas and scenarios. We explored two different approaches for delivering the app's services, evaluating each against critical key path scenarios, ease of use, smooth onboarding, and other crucial UX/UI considerations before moving forward.
Interactive Low-Fi Prototype
After evaluating the options of paper prototypes, designs for a low-fidelity prototype are created in Figma. A consistent design system was established for colors, buttons, and fonts to enhance recognition and ensure visual consistency. The design also features both dark and light mode options, as demonstrated in the "Your Account" example below.
Based on the screen designs, the paper prototype is being transformed to an clickable flow, showcasing the above described key path scenario. The flow is demonstrating how a reservation for any specific date and time can be placed, including indicating already booked timings, dates and/or workstations. By simplifying the interactions from the initial paper prototype, we aim to reduce effort and make the reservation process as seamless as possible for the user to achieve their goal.