Day 11: Actually a lot more than a day

So I kinda fiddled with the idea of the new web application and kept thinking about how to make it ‘fun’. Its kind of a problem about being a perfectionist. So I hereby declare to stop thinking about perfecting it and just do the bare skeleton out without any skins. A naked web app!!

So onto Project Butterfly, spent the few days refreshing my PHP and mySQL and honestly, there are so many functions inside that I never knew, really an eye opener. The darnest thing was that the book came with a CD-Rom and I didn’t borrow it from the library so I’m stuck. Anyway, I got other books so I’m just gonna head-dive into it tomorrow. Just finalizing the database design with some possible scenarios to ensure its working. Seriously, I’m not really a good back-end person but I hope I can become one by force.

Only 8 more days before I head off to Seoul, excited but yet worried about the progress. Really need this project Butterfly to get out of this sticky situation. So here I am cheering myself on, GO Ethan!!! Only you can change your own life, DO it! 

Day 10: New Idea Popping Out

Ok, so I was out for a few days for the Lunar New Year holidays and was all day out with my relatives and friends, catching up to see what we have been up to. And of course, throw in all those nice blessings for each other.

Actually, yesterday started hitting the books and am currently refreshing my knowledge of PHP and mySQL. Just one more chapter to go and its onto the first exercise but something amazing happened. While conversing with my beloved, a sudden web application idea hit me and it could be done within a week. Its not anything amazing and not really looking forward to earning much from it, just a useful platform.

So while working on Project Butterfly, I would also establish time for Project Grasshopper (since we are into insects). It should not take more than 2 weeks to go ‘live’. Unknowingly, I’m only left with 14 days for Project Butterfly, gotta establish the database soon to get things going but it proves to be quite a task in view of expansion. Will scribble something down tonight while pondering over and hopefully can get it documented by tomorrow.

Oh, the refresher on PHP and mySQL was great, brings me back fond memories of lectures and tutorials by Mr Seow. Get the database out of the way then let’s go full throttle.

Day 9: Done with the Wireframes

Finally, after 2 days of rest and its back to action. Finally squeezed out the final processes of the wireframe out and its all done. Looking to keep it simple for phase 1 with all basic user expectations met before committing time to enhance it, gonna keep it for phase 2.

Like what Facebook does, make some mistakes in the name of speedy development because at least the progress is there and yet time to improve on it. At least maybe I would know what is wrong. Trying out all the progress navigation and keeping it really easy for customers to complete their order in 3 steps. Next up, going onto Database modeling and this should be completed during the Lunar New Year period.

Not gonna take a break and my MacBook will be with me while awaiting for the relatives to come and give me their red packets. Hahaha. Hopefully, not too many social obligations will turn up during this festive season as I need the concentration to complete Project Butterfly by end of February. Need the $$ desperately to go back into “Normal” mode.

Day 8: Back from the Grave!

Oh man, remember the saga about my MacBook dying? It came back to haunt me and then I had no choice but to do a clean install as the corrupted file was still causing a boot up issue. Therefore Saturday was blank and Sunday was my rest day. Fret not, doesn’t mean I’m losing steam but I’m back stronger because now my MacBook is fine again with new upgrades!

Today I had company dinner but I told myself to finish more than usual to make up for the lost time and I did! I am 90% done with the wireframes and only left the “check out” procedure to document. After this, most likely would run through a simulated user testing with my colleagues to see how intuitive the wireframes are and its onto the Database modeling. Taking a little longer than expected but this process has to be done right because users are the most important. And not forgetting the Simple Stick~ eliminating for simplicity. Gotta push myself harder to make it “idiot proof”.

Things were a little rough financially but finally had my first client for an e-commerce site and Facebook marketing is on its way~ So hope things will be much better soon. BTW, Lunar New Year is here and my renovations job is kinda “on hold” as these people take 3 weeks break (gawd, they really know how to enjoy). So momentum should be picking up~ Can’t wait to crack the cocoon of Project Butterfly!

Day 7: Nothing Done!

Seriously!? Yes!! Nothing for Project Butterfly is being done because I spent the entire day devoted to my own start up, Studious Media. That doesn’t mean the day was unproductive, if fact, I finished designing an entire page plus script and style it! You can see my hard work for the day here.

The story is, I am currently working 2 jobs to make ends meet, and one of them is Studious Media. However, so far no sales and actually I have been getting request from people about E-Commerce packages. And so, to ensure that I can put food in front of me (I’m not married), I needed to please my customers and make them stop asking me for quotations. In a way, it does free up more time to work on Project Butterfly. So please forgive my one day of diversion.

By the way, I also created a Facebook page for my studio and trying out Social Media marketing since that’s kinda free and I’m low on funds. Even doing some A/B experiments about sharing on FB. Tomorrow will be a full day of wireframing the product pages and hopefully can discuss with my uncle about the process flow. Coding is not far away, I’m pretty much excited about it!

PS: Friday evening, everyone’s enjoying. But the life of a start up founder, I’m just here in office sharing my day with all of you. I’m actually quite glad that people like my post (so please continue to support me morally) and I donated $5 to Christian Mihan‘s indiegogo to help him buy a computer. Not much, but just trying to help~ 

Day 6: MacBook Died Last Night

Last night, actually felt the difference while using it as the “Beach Ball” keeps appearing no matter what operation I was trying to perform, even just trying to open a new tab in Chrome. But didn’t thought it would be serious till I wanted to continue my design at home, it wouldn’t boot up!! Luckily, it was just corrupted boot data and not the HDD failing. So installed Lion in and everything seems fine (for now). Haha

Because of this problem, started work late again and ended up almost doing nothing. But work is still work, and I’m the only person working on it. So gathered a few colleagues to choose between the product grouping and true enough, they chose the grouping by process flow as it was easier to understand. That being settled, I was then trying again to draw a nice Rapid Prototype but that would mean it wasn’t rapid at all.

So ended up using Illustrator to construct the wireframes and trying to present at best how the interactions might be. Would be able to ask some friends as a form of User Testing about how they would navigate. Finished up all the primary navigation wireframes, so tomorrow will be the product pages. This phase is getting more and more like the final documentation and looking at how things are slowly forming, it is truly motivating. However, I am afraid much of losing sight of the importance of simplicity. Shall take a break after wireframing to hit it with the simple stick!! Hyaaaaa

Day 5: Had an Appointment with Usability Research Company

Yeap and it was a very insightful visit to their company over at Boat Quay. That’s where Focus Groups and User Testings are being conducted, something I didn’t have the privilege for my project. Nonetheless, was glad to meet like-minded people who cares so much for the users of our applications. Trust me, many developers still don’t. Spent almost an entire day there due to the appointment being scheduled mid noon.

Was working on my Commerce package for only 2 hours and ended up scrapping the banner design simply because it didn’t even excite me, needless to say for the other users. That’s kinda my way to stopping myself when I know I’m coming up with some crappy stuff. But had another idea but Project Butterfly needed more work.

Decided to go into Site Mapping the entire application to know how many pages of wireframes and guess what? I suddenly realized an alternative to grouping the products! So ended up with 2 site maps which I must decide by tomorrow which one is better. The first one groups the products by its type and thats how I ended up with so many buttons. The second one groups the products by it area affected and therefore giving me lesser buttons and enable a certain process flow for the user. I need a 2nd opinion but I’m all alone in the office right now. Shall wait till tomorrow to meet my designers and put it on the table. 

So not much was achieved today, I’m ashamed of myself but somehow glad that the Site Mapping might lead to something better in the end. Means my Paper Prototyping kinda failed its purpose. Wireframes tomorrow and also to decide if user would need to login to use the system, seems redundant as users should not be returning customers for another good 5 years at least.

Day 4: Paper Prototyping and Rapid Prototyping

Spent more time today on the paper prototyping and trying to figure out the interactions. However, this application has more buttons than usual and even the ‘mini-cart’ has to be constantly on the page, taking up quite a lot of screen estate. Decided to make it slide in when needed, hopefully that will be smooth enough for all browsers. Gawd, I hate IE.

Ended up with two different sets of navigational bars, one for the ‘administrative’ stuff like Home, About Us and Contact Us. While the other remains for only for Product Categories and Sub-categories. Glad that I was able to sort out the functionality wireframing but was beginning to worry about the beautified UI as it looks quite bad now. (maybe its my drawing)

So didn’t manage to get on to site map but guessed I will be using the numbering system to create one simple one as the project might grow quite a bit if I’m not careful with the grouping of products. Sadly, I seemed to be crawling in this chapter of the book but hopefully things will start to breeze passed this planning stage. I do recognize that this phase is important and will later save me a lot of trouble from re-coding or re-designing.

On a side note, handling the load of 3 jobs is making me confused as to which I should give first priority but I really love web development and I’m sure this project will fill a need for consumers who are tired of the existing system. I sometimes am afraid I have too much hope for Project Butterfly, but hope is required.

 

Day 3: Didn’t Expect This Much Attention

Realized that some people are following this development blog, which was totally unexpected since I didn’t share at all on any Social Media. But anyway, thanks for reading and I took the Sunday off for badminton with my friends (its’s my only off day, so spare me)

So the results from the survey are in and turns out to be quite interesting. The number 1 issue on consumer’s mind about home renovation is Trust, and design ranks 3rd out of 4. So I guess credibility is really important in this industry than what the designers do. But these are just the general consumer who are concerned more about budget too. No offense to the designers as I know, they do really great difference to a project.

Also got the top 5 “must-have functionalities” and Contact Form is one of them! Wow~ and “social network signing up” didn’t make it. Maybe its the age of the current homeowners and buyers, so social networks are still not a major part of their lives. But this survey really helps me to get a good focus on what is expected (at least in Phase One) and I could build from there.

So I had all these characters made up the previous time and I’m supposed to act as them to use my app but I guessed I had the flow quite well developed in my mind, so all the characters ended performing the same tasks. Hahaha~ will do this exercise once the sitemap is up to test the flow better. 3 clicks to get what I want is a rule of thumb but I hope I can push for 2.

The other 2 following sections of the book requires focus groups, so that kinda put me off. So I just read through to see the thought process and next up, is Paper Prototyping. Gawd, finally we are getting close to coding. Though the method in the book is not the “cut & position” method but its kinda same. Will use my ex-lecturer’s method of “cut & position” as it is faster and take some photos on my phone to store them.

Guess the specifications requirement should be up too. Gonna prepare that and the prototyping. Oh, one problem, the navigation buttons are a handful and I dont think it can be placed comfortably in a row. Need to sort that out and still maintain usability. Much more expectations for tomorrow. 

Day 2: Still reading around IA and UCD

Well, when most people say what you learnt in school is not applicable at work, it really doesn’t applies much to web development.

Reading through chapter 2, its starts with getting market research about what my target audience thinks and feels about the upcoming product and what they might wanna see. So I made a survey on Google Drive and went to Facebook to find a bunch of friends who fitted the profile of users for my application. Now to wait for them to complete it. Its just 5 questions, what is taking them so long?

In the next section, its to create Personas for the application. I recall that in Airene’s class, we were asked to imagine some fictional character to market our product to ( I totally thought that was stupid back then). But now, I’m doing it on my own and made 8 characters! Then I had to imagine how they would behave on my application and how their objectives would be met.

Tomorrow I will continue to run through their imaginary tasks and create a flow. This kinda forms a really UCD approach to the application. Really learnt so much and this practice definitely creates a user-friendly UI! Level up? I guess…

Oh yea, theres also a Conceptual Model which should outline the entire websites, flow of how things would be organized. Its quite similar to a sitemap but its more general which much more emphasis on the entire outline of the project and this serves as a graphical guide to how the entire project should behave.