Going with the Flow
- Catherine Dwelley
- Feb 25
- 2 min read
This round was the first of the user flows. I started by re-reading my user journey. There are a couple of actions in this story that are suitable for a flow. I landed on the utilization of the app to find food on and off campus using two different views—online and offline.
I also looked at my initial product spec and the list of proposed features. Next, I started drawing with a pencil, and writing out each action and connecting it with arrows. This was actually really challenging—I had a hard time figuring out how to arrange everything on the page so I didn’t inadvertently forget a step.
After I felt it was pretty close, I took it into FigJam and built it on their digital whiteboard tool. I kept it simple with three different simple shapes—a blue square for basic screens, a yellow rectangle for starting and stopping points, and a purple diamond where choices occur. The arrows are color coded based on what shape they originated from, which helps keep them organized when things get complex. This first flow is more of a map of the whole feature, rather than following a user along on a specific task.
Once I had the more complex flow built, I built a second one following Maya as she looks for food options after the campus pantry is closed. This part went much faster since I already understood the shape of the feature, it was faster to dig into how it all works for different uses.
This second flow also has slightly different color coding. I kept the first part of the task one color, so it is easy for the user to follow the path. When she hits a block (the campus pantry being closed) you can easily follow her next steps, which is to flip over to off campus and find a stocked free fridge.
In addition to these first flows, I've also developed a survey to help with understanding students' feelings around campus food resources, language, stigma, and accessibility of resources on their own campus. Check it out here.
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