A&D
Who's A&D?
Lingo - Party Game
A&D • 2022-2022 • My role: User experience designer, front-end developer, project manager and art director
Designed and developed a mobile app for Android and iOS and launched it on Google Play & App Store.
Designed and developed a mobile app for Android and iOS and launched it on Google Play & App Store.
The source of our excitement and willingness to design and develop a new app came from a game called Celebrity, you might have heard of it being called Fish Bowl, The Hat Game, Salad Bowl, Monikers. We thought, maybe we could put a new spin on it and perhaps get a bit of coin for our efforts. So we decided to go ahead and make it happen, we called our app Lingo.
I led and oversaw the designs and artwork of this project. I was supported by my amazing brother, lead developer, Aris. We both shared a portion of the development, I took the more front-end and design portion of the project. I was responsible for the user experience and the deliverables that you will see in this case study. I saw the project through from the kickoff brainstorming session, to the launch of it on Google Play and App Store.
To communicate our ideas and open our minds to explore the app, we used FigJam. It’s a neat tool created by Figma, which allowed us to capture our initial thoughts about the app. I believe it’s important to have alignment when talking about abstract ideas in your mind and take those into a visual format where we can discuss and explore them together.
I sketched out in my sketch book some preliminary ideas from our FigJam sessions. It helped explore and iterate faster compared to using a digital tool. This method forces me to move fast and not worry about the quality of my output.
I moved on to creating prototypes that would really showcase the main flow of the app. It's amazing how many things you miss when you’re working with static frames. I believe prototyping is an incredibly important step to any development and design process, it reveals so many hidden steps, flows and UI elements that cannot be seen through static wireframes.
I worked closely with my brother, sharing ideas, bouncing off suggestions, giving ourselves constructive feedback and pair programming and pair designing. We used a combination of Figma, FigJam and Github to organize our comments to each other. My brother did an incredible job of putting together what was designed. I believe having a strong relationship, be it brother or co-worker, makes for a better experience and product overall.
I took on the role of project manager for this project. As soon as the project became bigger in scope we needed to get our hands on a tool. I decided to choose Github projects. It checked all our needs, easy, simple, quick and baked into our repository. It was a no brainer. It helped us focus and organize sprints and setup milestones. Having small bite-sized work laid out is not only easy and less stressful, it’s actually motivating to work on. The enormous mountain that is the project becomes achievable with one little issue at a time.
Along the way there were definitely some challenging moments that really took the wind out of our sails. One of the biggest challenges we gave ourselves was to take on In-App Purchases with a Third Party called Revenue Cat. But we took breaks and kept at it, eventually we were able to launch Lingo with In-App purchases on both iOS and Android platforms.
One of the biggest game changers in this project was the creation of our space theme. It provided a focal point, a north star for all design decisions and ideations. Inspiration came easily, ideas flowed one after another. We even created a mascot, Astro, that really drove home the project and tied it all up.
I established a design system to help support my own visual creations but as well as service as a reference for development. I dipped my toes in the world of front-end development with React Native components. In Figma, I created precise measurements that translated seamlessly into the code. This gave us a great speed, accuracy and alignment between mockups and the app.
I believe one of the most rewarding aspects of this project is the recognition of work through actual in-app purchases. We didn’t get a ton of money but just that little bit makes it worthwhile.
Cannot let perfection be the death of your app. It was an important reminder that not everything needs to be perfect. Things can be good enough, which allows them to be iterated on in the future.
Coding a little bit everyday was a game changer for me! It’s surprising how well it works. Kept me focused and on time.
Time boxing yourself with Milestones and people that count on you works well. Scheduling a play through even though you don’t have the features ready will force you to make decisions and move forward.
