I conducted user interviews and surveys with PC owners to understand their experience as a PC owner, asking them their struggles, what applications they use, what they use their PC for, and how confident they are in their knowledge with computers. I crafted 3 levels of personas based on my results.
I asked what tools PC owners currently use to monitor their PC's performance and analyzed how they fulfilled user needs, how they failed, and how it correlates to the users' problems.
With a firm grasp of what users need, I explored different solutions for the various struggles and issues they experience.
Other than an effective design to show information, what else can I offer users? What was necessary? What was practical?
After understanding the general layout and content, I crafted low to high fidelity wireframes to slowly explore how to best display useful information effectively.
My goal was to make complex and confusing information less daunting to look at and easy to understand.
The interface design achieves an efficient experience that reduces cognitive overload of complex information with basic principles of visual design.
PCpath's solutions can be divided into two approaches: reacting from issues that occur in a PC, and preventing them from happening again.
Current tools that PC owners use do not offer these solutions as thoroughly as PCpath could.
Users can view their hardware's current performance at a glance and in depth.
Users can see if their hardware is overheating and can take action by increasing their fan speed.
PCpath will record information during a crash to help users better understand what happened, and provide a solution and more information on how to prevent it from happening again.
PCpath will record information during a crash to help users better understand what happened, and provide a solution and more information on how to prevent it from happening again.
Research Matters: It is difficult to design a product without a basis. Making decisions because I think something is user-friendly is different than knowing that I am designing towards a specific goal.
