From Paper to Pixels

The Defenders of the Diaries

8 min readFeb 9, 2020

Have you ever wrote down an important event or task on paper and wish that you could, with the click of a few buttons, view it on your phone? The majority of the people that I researched here at General Assembly said that they too felt the same way. Google calendar is an application that (as of 2018) has over 500 Million installs. According to ExpandedRamblings.com. The popularity of the mobile device is rising every year. More and more technology is being developed for the mobile user and we’re seeing an astronomical increase of development in the mobile arena. Although the mobile tech world is booming, we’re also seeing a remnant of people holding firm their grip of the mighty pen and paper. The last vestige of the guardians of the papyrus, the keepers of trapper-keepers. The defenders of the diaries. This is to whom I seek to design for. The mighty… ok, I’m sorry. According to my research, the day planner is not going anywhere. So here is my production of From Paper to Pixels

So how can we merge the two worlds of analog and digital? I have a solution to this problem and I’d like to walk you through it.

Identifying the Problem

The main issue I discovered in my research, as stated previously, is that I have uncovered a trend of users who still prefer to write down their events and tasks to help them stay organized. Even-though the user wants to stay plugged in they also prefer being connected to the mobile world. They just like writing stuff down.

“I’m tactile, I like writing things down…”

Goal of the Project

My goal in this project is to assist the user in being able to write down their important events and tasks and then import them into their Google Calendar mobile app. My intention is to create an import feature within the Google Calendar app that allows them, in three easy steps, the ability to accomplish this task.

Who are the Users

The assignment was clear… I was hired by General Assembly to assist their students to discover an area of time management that was in need of some assistance. The one insight that I had come across several times is that the user still used paper to write down their important information.

The Scope

The project occurred from January 21–29 and it encompassed the entire NY campus of General Assembly.

The Process…

The Interviews

The first thing that I did on that dark and stormy afternoon, as it feels like a year ago was to get out of the classroom and meet some students and hear their story. Listen to them talk about their experiences as a student at GA, their trials and their tribulations. Listen to what kept them up at night as I recorded them and took notes. This was all new to me and I was enjoying every pixel of the moment.

The first person I ever interviewed was Judy a software engineering alum. She was the first person I interviewed and she was also the first person that clued me in on how some students still prefer to write things down. “Im tactile” she said… “I like to write things down”. From Judy I met Darrin. He too was an SEI alum and he, on the other hand, didn’t write anything down. He “knew what [he] needed to do and just did it.” He’s a better man than me. I need to write everything down and I still forget things. He did say that he did write things down a bit. So there’s two. Next I met Aaron. Aaron was an interesting cat. He was the first current student that I chatted with. He followed some methods for time management that had something to do with a tomato. I’m not sure about that, but boy did Aaron like to talk. He started out all quiet and then he opened up. It was fun having an excuse to talk to random people. I like this part of the job. He used Google Calendar and flip flopped between the app and his tomato method. I liked Aaron and I wish him well. And then there was Geoff (with a G and an O, apparently). Geoff was awesome, I guess that was because he was fellow UXer and he “got it”. He opened up about his life and we chopped it up for the longest time of all four. He talked about his family, his commute, and even how GA torpedoed his love life. He’ll bounce back, I have confidence with my man Geoff. He also was one who still liked to write things down but still used the Google Calendar app. I am starting to see a trend here dear Watson. So now what? I’ve only been at this UX thing for 11 (school) days. I’m still slacking for help from Marilyn in my sleep… MARILYN! So back to the process…

This is not my image. Blurred for comedic purposes only… read on.

Affinity Mapping

Or infinity Mapping as I like to call it as it takes me forever to get it done…

Here is where my mind melted and I almost sat in the corner and cried, well until Heather came out of the bathroom and saw me staring at the wall (just outside the women’s room. That’s not awkward). So I sat there aimlessly and she helped talk me though it. I love this class as we really pull for each other. I blurred the image above to depict my eyes losing focus as I stared into the Sticky Note abyss. So back to infinity mapping… I extrapolated important chunks of data from the interviews. I wrote them on sticky notes and slapped them on the wall and just stared. I was blank. I looked over to see what Will was doing… he was mapping and moving and writing and rearranging… so I figured I should do the same. I mapped and moved and rearranged and put my hand under my chin (also like Will) and contemplated. I knew what I had to do I just couldn’t get there. There had to be something I was missing. Some trends started to pull together naturally and things started to take shape and I started to see a person forming from the ashes of the sticky notes. But seriously, I started to see a person forming into my persona. Charlie….

He was the user that was being formed and I felt as though his story needed to be told. The world had to know Charlie as I did. Charle loved GA, in fact his motto was “Just GA”. I told Charlie that he needed to get that tattooed on his forearm to start his sleeve. Charlie then said he’s afraid of needles and then we talked about how their making strides in…. But I digress. Charlie’s goals were to maintain a simple life while he was a student at GA and he needed to stay organized. He really felt comfortable with writing things down on paper but still liked to use his phone to stay connected to the digital world. What was Charlie to do? How might I help my good buddy Charlie especially how he has been there for me in the past? Again, GA comes first and he needs to stay organized. How can I help him maximize and manage his time and yet help him stay coupled to his electronic components?

I had an Idea!

What if we could merge the two together? Combing the two modes of operating, the paper and pen and the 0’s and 1’s into one tool. So now what? That’s a great idea, but what does this look like?

I’m glad you asked. So from my idea came this…

These low-fidelity wireframes started to give a picture to my rambling and sometime incoherent thoughts. This part of the process was fun as well. I used to love arts and crafts and this brought me back to Camp Lincoln when I was 10. So from the the low-fi we did some testing to see if the user could navigate the screens. For the most part the user was pretty capable at accomplishing the task.

Then we went into the next phase… THE MID-FIDELITY. Duh Duh DUUUUUUH. It’s midnight, so excuse all of my attempts at humor.

So we did some more testing and received some very good feedback.

Thanks guys. Ideating, iterating, testing, and repeat… or something like that. We kept the ball rolling! We are going to change the world with this little feature to an amazing app in the Google Calendar. Or maybe we’d help just a few niche users. Either way we are now well on our way to helping some people out. Now it was time to convert these low-fidelity paper wireframes into something that looks digital but is not quite ready for production. We were now onto the mid-fidelity prototype portion of the UX process.

So this portion of the process went smooth as well. We learned the software and then bang, we’re off to the races. Some changes were made and the concept was starting to take form.

Mid-Fidelity Clickable Prototype

Some Pivots

I changed the interface of screen 3, the camera. I thought it would look better to make this screen look like the iPhone camera rather than a scan app.

I loved this process. The UX design process is slowly beginning to take root in my brain. I hope this case study makes sense as it’s my first. I truly love this class and I am thankful to be a part of the Gossamer Nation!