Dates:
Sept 2014 – Dec 2014
Skills:
Product management
User research
Agile/scrum methodology
Interaction design
Marketing
Software:
Axure
Github
Course:
Mobile app development for entrepreneurs (EECS 441)
Collaborators:
Nicholas Babcock
Jacob Korona
Progress:
100%
Droptime is an HTML-based app that allows users to jot down concise snippets of notes and categorize them with a hashtag. This was an entrepreneurial, passion-led project that I helped shepherd from ideation to development to marketing. I worked on this project with a team of two software developers and served as its product manager.
Members of the class were asked to prepare and deliver two 30-second product pitches. We were then given the opportunity to talk to our classmates to determine what product ideas we should work on and whom we should work with. These discussions resulted in the creation of the team that worked on droptime.
Our team met for two hours each week. As product manager, I facilitated all team meetings, coached team members on user-centered design methodology, and acted as scrum master. During these meetings we:
We conducted four 20-minute, context-based interviews, observing how users organized their ideas and to-do lists. Based on the behaviors and motivations observed in these interviews, we constructed our three personas and scenarios.
We identified the pros and cons of our “competitors.”
I sketched the wireframes for Droptime’s core features, which included (1) timeline (2) search, and (3) visualization.
From these wireframes, we built a working prototype in order to gather feedback from customers.
We managed our two product development cycles according to the The Scrum Guide, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland.
We used GitHub to manage product backlog. We defined requested features/bugs by writing a detailed description of the feature, to be accompanied by a screenshot, if one was available. We labeled our requested features “nice to have” or “must have.”
We then decided, by consensus, what features to work on for each sprint.
We asked five users to evaluate our MVP 1.0. We also asked them how they felt about specific features on a scale of 1–5 for satisfaction and importance, five being the highest.
Quantitative results:
| User 1 | User 2 | User 3 | User 4 | User 5 | |
| Add post | 5 / 4 | 4.5 / 3 | 5 / 4 | 4.5 / 4.5 | 4 / 4 |
| Search | 5 / 4 | 4 / 3 | 4 / 5 | 5 / 4 | 5 / 4 |
| Multi-device | 5 / 4 | 4 / 5 | 5 / 5 | 5 / 5 | 4 / 5 |
| Share posts | 5 / 4 | 2 / 2 | N/A | 4 / 4 | 5 / 5 |
| Overall | 4 | 3 | 4 | N/A | 4 |
Key: importance/satisfaction
Qualitative results:
| User feedback | Team response |
| Our search form could be clearer. Users were confused by our use of the “#” icon to denote search. | We replaced the “#” icon with a magnifying glass icon. |
| Users could not register for a new account. | We fixed our registration page. |
| Users did not know how to use the visualization feature. | We developed a 2-minute tutorial showing users how to use this feature. |
| Our color scheme was dull. | We developed a color scheme with a purple accent. |
We crafted an elevator pitch to help others understand our product and our competition:
Droptime is for the busy bee and the daydreamer who are dissatisfied with writing lists down in separate places. Our product is a centralized, lightweight, web-based note-taking app. Unlike fumbling through countless notepads to find your ideas, dropti.me offers a powerful search tool using hashtags and visualizations to make it easy to bring your thoughts to life.
After integrating feedback from the results of MVP 1.0, we also introduced new features that we wanted to include MVP 2.0. These features included:
We read two expository works related to product development. The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks advised us to hold true to the product vision in the midst of complex software development.
We also read Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm, a marketing book about bridging the adoption gap between “visionaries” and “pragmatics.”
Our team gave a final presentation on our cumulative efforts throughout the semester. Our final product is a fully functional app that we welcome the public to use.
© 2024 · Robert Wang.
