This section covers the design requirements for the Prototype.

Following on from the wireframes, I established design principles that had to be considered, which were then applied when creating a low fidelity mock up of the designs to get a sense of the style. These designs were made in figma based on the wireframes and will be put through user evaluation, testing the main functions of the system.

Design Principles (Norman)

Visibility

The users need to see the options that are available to them, and it should be ensured that complex navigation pathways are not required to access priority interactions, and enhance the user experience.

Users may not have adequate lighting when viewing the system so the interface will require good visibility and identity of elements. This will require a minimal design to ensure the clutter is kept to a minimum and enhance the visibility of graphical elements. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure users with poor vision are able to easily recognise the different elements and navigate the interface with minimal assistance and guidance.

Feedback

Feedback is essential in indicating the result of any actions users take, and consistency will be required in any visible responses to enhance the user experience. It is crucial that there be indicated that an action is successful to reduce anxiety in the job seeking process. It is crucial that users who are not familiar with technology understand what each of their actions accomplish on the interface to ease their experience, and ensure incorrect pathways are not taken, or can be recovered from.

Constraints

While some elements may be open-ended to allow for users to use the system how they please, constraints are required to limit the use and avoid such open-endedness that the system is far too complex to use.

Mapping

Mapping is crucial in representing the relationships between objects and establishing a natural composition of elements on the interface. As the application will be present on mobile devices, it will need to be designed so that it is possible to use with one hand - whether that is their left or right hand.

Consistency

Consistency is essential in navigation and learnability of the interface. Consistency will be maintained between similar elements; buttons will have different design features compared to non interactive elements, and a consistent colour scheme to establish the purpose of some functionalities (e.g. red: no, green: yes).

Affordance

Affordance will be applied to evidently distinguish the interactive elements from non-interactive elements. Different types of visual elements will have distinguishing aesthetic features so users can easily differentiate these kinds of components, with additional consistency to enforce the different design characteristics.

System Requirements

Offline Use

The system should be available to use offline, as users may not always be in areas with good connection, or may not have the finances to use data at any given point.

Resume Creation

Users should be able to fill in a digital form that automatically creates a digital resume in their desired template.

Referral to other services

Users are able to access other services, and use the application with other jobseeking services to ensure their options are not limited. The automated resume can be downloaded as a document and used in other applications.

Location

The application should be aware of the user’s location.