Droney

Goal

To strengthen the social fabric between the assorted drone communities and build a single platform to solve the issues drone enthusiasts face as an individual or a group

Research

First, we did a literature review to understand the problem space. Then we conducted 10 Semi-structured Interviews and also attended a Drone Racing Event on the invitation of one of our participants. Some of the interview questions are as follows:

Can you tell me about your first flight experience?

What kind of features do you look for when you buy a drone?

What do you do before flying a drone?

Is there anything you find surprisingly handy or annoying after you started using it?

Do you share these drone experiences with other people? How do people react to it?

Participant Demographics

Drone Racing Event

Pain Points

We understood that the drone community is divided into 2 separate groups and they act mutually exclusive of each other:

The Racer Group - They usually build their own drones to reduce expenditure when the drone crashes
The Photography Group - They buy very costly drones for better features and picture quality

We analyzed the interviews using the Mind Maps technique and found 3 major pain points common between both the groups

No common platform to share experiences

There are many drone pilots who are enthusiastic about helping the new pilots so that they don't repeat the same mistakes. But both of them don't have any way to get connected to each other.

Authenticity and Integrity of online available data

The drone pilots need to follow a lot of rules and regulations and this data is obtained from various online sources which are not authenticated by the FAA.

Cost of Drones/Drone Parts

8 out of 10 participants complained that the drones / drone parts are very costly and if they break or lose it, they either give up flying or wait for a long time to buy a new one.

Mind Map

Process

We chose to make a mobile app. To decide the flow of the app we made Information Architecture and used UI Pattern Cards for adding suitable features

Information Architecture

UI Patterns Cards

Medium Fidelity Prototype

Post Usability Testing Design

Onboarding: After the usability test, we understood that it was necessary to ask some basic questions to the participants about their interests and experience to give them personalized results

Home Page: In the first design, Maps was the home screen. This was confusing for the participants as there was no context available. So, we added a home screen that can redirect them to the desired functions.

Maps: The biggest issue in this section was the "Hamburger Menu". When the participants opened the maps screen, they looked confused, what to do next? Out of 7, just 1 particpant noticed the hamburger menu. So, we replaced it with a "Floating Action Button".

Discussions & Profile: A simple concept of Gamification is added in this section to encourage the users to ask more questions and give more answers. The stats like the number of answers given and the number of upvotes will increase the popularity of the people and the number of downvotes would be helpful in reducing spams.

Marketplace: Our participants complained that the drones and drone parts are very costly. So, to solve this issue, we designed Marketplace. The drone pilots can sell their old drones or drone parts at a cheaper price here. Verified sellers can also use this platform to reach out to more people.

Resources: Here the users can find every information related to drones and drone flying. We have also added a unique feature called "Talk to a Mentor". Here, the new pilots can get one on one guidance from the experts in that field. The mentors can use this platform to publicize their organization or just to share knowledge. In the Hi-Fi design, we changed this feature to "Talk to the Expert".

Research Paper

Video