Limitless Upgrades App
The Problem
As of today, there is no app that allows people to search for mods or parts for their cars along with look at paint and other cosmetics. My friend, Cody Smith, and I chose to create an app that puts the idea of customizing your car all on one system. The idea was to streamline the customization process, cutting out the hassle of searching through a variety of different sites just to find the one part you are looking for.
The Solution
To create an app aimed towards building and customizing cars, we brainstormed the important aspects of the app which are:
an app that creates a single place to find a variety of parts
a place for people new to the car community and veteran car community people can come together
My Design Process
Step 1: Research
Competitor analysis
We began by looking into other websites and apps that relate to our app. The primary contenders we found were CarFax, Kelley Blue Book, and Custom shops like The Lab. We could not find any app that was similar to the one we wanted to make, so the closest competitors are websites that give you information on your car. This is because that is also something we wanted to be apart of our app, where it shows you the value of your car and prices of parts.
Step 2: Building
Sketches and wireframes
Our next step was to begin building the foundation of the app. We started by constructing an IA structure as well as a user flow diagram. Once we had completed those, we moved on to sketches where we both created our own ideas of how we wanted the app to look. We then came together and combined our ideas to make our final sketches. From the sketches we began wireframing, and preparing to build our app using Figma.
A large part of this was designing a sutable logo for our app. We came up with three primary ideas and chose the one we thought would be best. After getting feedback we decided to use one of our alternate ones.
Prototype of Limitless Upgrades app
User Research
Next we moved to researching and discussing who would be using our app. Our primary audience would be people who enjoy buying parts and modifying their cars. To go with that we also wanted to make our app easy to use and understand so people who may be newer to modifying cars could understand the sections.
After this we created personas to mimic the different users we believed would use the app. These personas were those of people who are familiar with cars and modifications of all ages and people who are unfamiliar with the process.
Interface Design and Prototyping
With the sketching and wireframes done, the next step was moving to Figma where we started to build the layouts for the different pages. We started with the homepages and drop down menus that bring you to the different sections of the app. When we felt the app was at a good point we went into a critique and got information from others about what they’d do differently and how we can improve the app.
With the new information from the critique, we went back and worked on the app more. We changed details like the typography on the pages as well as reworked buttons and layouts.
