Client Meeting Reaction

Overview

The client meeting with Dave was a real eye opener. It put into perspective that we still have quite a ways to go in terms of our application. I was a little disappoint in myself for not being more prepared for it. Part of the issue I feel was that I was focusing a lot more on the back end stuff and getting the core functionality finished without paying enough attention to the user experience. I do understand that user experience is of central importance to this project, however, I suppose I was expecting the meeting to be focused more on action items that we had planned on presenting. Dave pointed out several issues concerning our application and while I wasn't thrilled with his overall reaction, he made several valid points. The one that hit home the hardest was the flow of the website. We essential have no flow as he pointed out which is a real issue. We can't expect to create a successful application if there is no rhyme or reason behind the navigation. If the application isn't easy for a user to understand and follow, there is little chance they will come back and use it again. Based on this, I have a plan that will hopefully help in creating a more natural flow of actions that will hopefully improve the usability of the application.

Improvements

The first thing I will be doing is going back to some of the websites that track carbon emissions to try and understand better how the user is prompted for information and also understand the general layout. I will take note of my personal preferences for certain behaviors and flows and see if these things can be applied in some way to our application. I am hoping that by going back to the research phase with an emphasis on user experience, that next meeting will be more successful in terms of presenting an application that a user will actually want to use.

Conclusion

The client meeting helped me understand some of the short comings that our application has and where it needs improvements. Dave did say that he felt that we had a lot of pieces which was a nice positive and he is correct in that aspect. We are lacking in the user experience area though which is no good and I feel partially responsible as the application proposer because I should have had a more concrete understanding of how I wanted the user to navigate the site. I focused more on the back end and it hurt this client meeting. I am confident though that I will be able to make some concrete deciscions that will turn our app around and make it a better experience for users.