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Needfinding • Prototyping • Design • Testing • Developing
Awards🏆:
Best Pitch
Best Demo
Teammates:
Andreas Lorgen
Darynne Lee
Odin Farkas
Class:
CS147
Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction
PISSION
Overview
Our journey with PISSION has been one of needfinding, collaboration, and design evolution, culminating in a user-centric solution for a universal problem: finding restrooms during one-off trips. Through extensive interviews and empathy mapping, we uncovered key pain points around restroom accessibility, ridesharing, and parking. After prototyping multiple ideas, including ride-sharing and parking sublease concepts, we selected PISSION based on overwhelming user feedback and demand.
Our design process involved multiple iterations—low-fi, med-fi, and hi-fi prototypes—with usability testing driving crucial changes in navigation, user experience, and interface layout. By leveraging tools like Figma, React Native, and Supabase, we delivered a functional high-fidelity prototype. The final product embodies our values of accessibility, flexibility, transparency, and community, ensuring that users can find, review, and contribute restroom information effortlessly. The process taught us the importance of iterative design, user feedback, and building with empathy at the core.
Needfinding
Our needfinding process began by conducting in-depth interviews with a diverse group of users, including commuters, students, and industry experts. Through empathy mapping and synthesizing key insights, we identified recurring themes such as the inconvenience of locating public restrooms, the stress of parking in urban areas, and safety concerns with ride-sharing. The insights pointed to a significant gap in solutions that address restroom accessibility, prompting us to explore innovative ways to meet this need. The empathy-driven approach laid a strong foundation for designing a solution that caters to real, pressing user problems.
Experience Prototypes
To test initial assumptions and gather early user feedback, we developed three experience prototypes: ridesharing, restroom finding, and parking spot subleasing. By directly interacting with users in real-world settings—offering restroom directions with a sign or proposing ride-sharing on campus—we gained valuable insights about user behaviors and preferences. The restroom-finding prototype, in particular, generated immediate interest and engagement, confirming the strong demand for such a solution. These prototypes helped validate ideas quickly, refine our focus, and guide further design iterations.
Low-Fi Prototype
With clear insights from experience prototyping, we created a low-fidelity (low-fi) prototype to outline basic user flows and core functionalities. The low-fi prototype was designed using hand-drawn wireframes and simple clickable screens to simulate tasks like finding a restroom, adding a new restroom, and leaving reviews. This stage allowed us to test early design concepts, gather feedback on the basic app structure, and identify potential usability issues before investing in more detailed design work.
Med-Fi Prototype
The medium-fidelity (med-fi) prototype improved upon the low-fi version by incorporating more refined visuals and interactive elements. Built using Figma, the med-fi prototype included a realistic app layout with clear navigation paths and task flows. Usability testing revealed key areas for improvement, such as simplifying the filter options and relocating the current location button. The med-fi stage helped us finalize the main interface and provided a near-complete visual representation of the app while still being flexible enough to accommodate further changes.
Hi-Fi Prototype
The high-fidelity (high-fi) prototype was built using React Native and integrated real-time functionality with Supabase for database management. This version featured a fully interactive map, user authentication, and the ability to add, review, and find restrooms. We incorporated feedback from med-fi testing, such as redesigning the homepage to center around a full-screen map and reducing unnecessary information fields. The high-fi prototype provided a polished, functional version of the app that allowed users to experience PISSION as it would operate in a real-world context, ensuring our solution was both intuitive and effective.
Final Learnings
Our journey with PISSION was an invaluable learning experience in user-centered design, rapid prototyping, and iteration. From initial needfinding to the final high-fidelity prototype, we learned the importance of deeply understanding user pain points, staying adaptable through feedback, and balancing functionality with intuitive design. Building a crowdsourced platform required not only technical skills but also a constant focus on fostering accessibility and community. Our efforts were recognized at the final expo, where we proudly received the Best Pitch and Best Demo awards. These honors reflected the hard work, creativity, and collaborative spirit that went into making PISSION a solution that truly resonates with users. Moving forward, we are excited about the potential of PISSION to create real-world impact and continue evolving based on user needs.
