The Design Challenge
I collaborated with a software engineer on a design challenge. We decided to make a booking app where you can book anything from doctor's appointments, hotels, and flights, to events and activities.
But that wasn't realistic...
Booking a doctor's appointment requires large data storage such as personal health records, documents, previous doctor's appointments, and often an internal messaging system. It's not as simple as booking an appointment, so it would need to be its own app.
A new idea
I'm a figure skater and I like to practice even when traveling. Recently, I went to Austin with my dad and wanted to reserve ice time to practice. The rink's calendar and booking system were confusing, so I chose a different rink. I thought it would be easier to have one app that can reserve ice time at any rink to avoid interacting with some ice rinks' poorly designed websites. so that's where this design concept came from.
Dynamic Duo
UX/UI Designer - Me
Developer - Puskar
Shortened User flow
I shortened the user flow by 2 interactions making reserving ice time more seamless.
Finding a Rink
One option is to integrate Google Maps to locate the rinks. The problem with that is Google Maps searches anything not just ice rinks.
We could have each ice rink provide its location to us and have an internal search of all the ice rinks in our system. This is more effective but requires more legwork.
Choosing a Session Constraints
Each ice rink needs to provide us with their hours, sessions, and prices. We could try to get this information through data scraping, but it may be more efficient if the ice rink has an account with us to receive payments and waiver confirmations.
Signing the Waiver
All ice rinks require skaters to sign a waiver agreeing to full liability for any injuries that may occur and also agreeing to follow the rules.
Constraints
Every ice rink would need to have its system linked to our app to receive a confirmation when the skater signs the waiver. This requires heavy marketing or an agreement with the ISU. If the ISU promotes this to the community, then it will be easier to implement.
Payment Constraints
Every ice rink would need to agree to make an account with our app linking their payment system to ours. That way when a skater pays in our app, the ice rink receives it.
Or, we could receive the payment and when the skater scans the QR code at the rink, we pay the ice rink.
Working with the Developer
Puskar had access to Figma Dev, so I didn't need to save the images for him. However, he wasn't able to see the color Hex codes. And he needed to custom-code the buttons, so I created a short style guide for him.
Learnings
1. This app will require heavy marketing to be successful. This would be easiest if the ISU or USFS implemented this and promoted it to the skating community.
2. A simple form field in Figma can be complicated to develop.
3. Figma Dev doesn't allow the developer to view everything that the design side does like local styles, so it's helpful to create a style guide.
Constraints
Since this was a design challenge for us to practice working together, we didn't do testing or market research. This design is based on my experience as a figure skater traveling. If we were to make this a real app, then we would need to do research, testing, iterations, and marketing.
If the ISU implements this design, we'll have access to the larger skating community to do testing and improve the practicality of the app.
Prototype
