Day 5 Validate

The goal for the final day is to share the prototype with users outside of your company. Because I was the only one on the project, I could share it with everyone.

Here are the key questions I wanted answered when I shared the prototype:

Is the site’s design aesthetically appealing?

This is a hard question to answer since it’s rather subjective. The overall feedback was positive, but it was mentioned the site seemed plain and was lacking something that would make it more complete.

Does it follow the material design guide?

Yes, it does to a point, but I need to follow the material design guide more consistently.

Are the color choices visually accessible?

Feedback was very positive. Testers enjoyed the colors.

Is the design audience appropriate?

This question is difficult to answer. The site is mostly a collection of thoughts and concepts for programming. But because I received a lot of positive feedback, it leads me to believe the design is audience appropriate. This will require more testing in the future.

Whats next?

If you are reading this, it means the blog went live (yay!). If it looks different from the initial prototype (which it does), then successfully I applied some of the feedback.

Closing Thoughts

I was creating this blog for myself, but testing was done with a handful of people. Since the constraints set an end point and a deadline I can work towards, I plan on applying the design sprint phases in other personal projects in the future.

Because I was solo and there aren’t many unique challenges in developing a blog, I look forward to using the design sprint in the future with more complex projects.

Technology Choices

The technology I decided to use was Jekyll. Jekyll makes the templating is easy, the posts are written in markdown, and a static site makes for easy deployment.

The Future

Future changes for the project will be to add transitions and animations, so long as they follow the material design guide.