Citizens Smile is a smartphone app that makes it easy for people in Africa to donate unwanted clothes to charity. It works by allowing donors to upload basic information about their unwanted clothes via the app. The system then finds a donation center around their location or a dispatch rider comes to collect them from their homes.

I carried out the project ranging from interviews, researches, surveys, ideas generation to user testing. It can be categorized majorly into these processes:

The Research process

The Design phase

Usability Testing

The Research process comprises the following phases:

User Research

User Pain points

Empathy Map

Stakeholders and their Impact complexity.

The Design phase involves the following processes:

Sketches : These are freehand drawings of all possible screens that will be on the app with users’ needs taken into consideration. It involves using basic shapes to represent ideas.

User Journey Map  and task flow: This is a visualization of how the users will interact with our product. It involves identifying and strategizing for key moments in the product to be designed.

Low Fidelity Prototype: includes the most basic content and visuals and are usually static (not interactive). It is often used to help map out the shell of the  interface, its screens and basic information architecture.

High Fidelity Prototype: This is computer-based and usually allow realistic (mouse-keyboard) user interactions. It takes one as close as possible to a true representation of the user interface. 

The last process is the Usability testing. This is a way to measure the usability of the product, learn from the feedbacks gotten and catch loopholes early. It is a continuous process. It helps confirm if the users’ problems were understood and how long it took them to solve these problems using the product.

The moderated type of testing was employed as the participants were guided throughout the process in real time.