Application Design I : Market Research

Application Design I : Market Research

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22.4.2026 - 20.5.2026 / Week 1 - Week 5

Dave Christian Moniaga / 0385630

Interactive Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Market Research

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Table of Contents

1. Lectures
2. Instructions

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Lectures

Week 1

Application design encompasses visual aesthetics, the way users interact with it, and principles that guide the development process.

A good app provides seamless user experience (doesn't have to think hard to use), boosts engagement, retention, & overall customer satisfaction.

Things to note are accessibility, intuitive navigation, natural interaction

A problem statement is like a pitch, a detailed description of a core problem of your audience.

Example: University students have an infinite amount of distractions available when studying at home. They need to help focus 

Week 2

UCD (User Centered Design) is a design philosophy that puts users first in the development process. For example, for a baby stroller the user are the parents and the end user are the babies.

Fig 1.2 User Centered Design process

B2C: Business to Customer

B2B: Business to Business

The return of investment on UCD is to,

• Improve credibility
• Improve performance
• Increase exposure
• Reduce resource burden

Trust becomes a currency in this situation. Shopee would rather refund you full for 5 stars rather than a bad review.

UX is more focused on user's impression & is more analytical based. While UI focuses more on the branding and overall visuals. As a UX designer, we can't focus only on our perception even when we are the "user".

The fundamentals of great UX needs to be functional, easy to use, visually appealing, and have a good brand experience. 

Market Research identifies the market needs, size, competition, and what fits.

Week 3

Consistency

Simplicity 

This principle focuses on effortless uses

An example for simplicity is Airbnb's app. Each stage serves a purpose & sorted by importance:

Fig 1.3 Airbnb's app stages on booking

• First page focuses on choosing
• Second page is for more information
• Last page is for confirmation

Visibility

Focusing on where you want the audience to look. An example of visibility can be seen from state changes, call to action, well placed icons, menus, and clear labeling. 

Fig 1.4 Example of state changes, CTA, and well placed menu labels

All of these examples focus on clear clarity, hierarchy, focus, and attention.

Feedback

Good feedback gives clear signal to the user towards successful task completion, involving:

• Textual messages
• Visual cues
• Sounds
• Haptic Feedback

Fig Examples of good feedback

A contextual feedback also gives users real time information about what is the current situation or what is happening. Giving the information now rather than for the user to be disappointed later.

Error Prevention

This principle is important as it reduces mistakes that can be made by users, increases efficiency, and improves accuracy.

Fig Principle of error prevention in effect

Examples of error prevention can be as listed:

• Input Validation: Giving explanation of the rules, reducing chance of making a wrong password for users.

Fig Example of input validation

• Clear Feedback: Provides information of what happened; feedback that indicates success, failures, or errors. Such as the amount charged in online payments and whether it went through or not. 

• Confirmation Steps: The choice given to users need to be clear and should be void of confusion. Warning critical actions that can cause unintended consequences. 

Fig Example of confirmation steps

Instructions

Task 1 - Market Research

29/4 

Check the company app, start to list down what they do. 

Try the homepage and list all the pages (mobbin.com)

3 good things about the website & 3 things to improve, 

gut feeling (what do i feel like can be improved), 

analyze competitor apps & what they do well, unrelated apps that can be used for inspiration., competitors table analysis.

draft problem statements.

Remember to bring summary for previous presentation / slides.

collect star rating from each stores / competitors we are choosing. It's important to also check the size difference between each competitor. (give an estimate diagram)

The 5 Why's: Sunway Malls

• Why? Because my personal experience is bad
• Why? When I try to find locations its hard
• Why? Because they don't actually show where u are in the map 
• Why? They didn't think about how important that is
• Why? Because they didn't understand UX and didn't do enough user testing

Feedback week 2

Refine the color usage on the slides. Remove the useless parts of the problem statement. Make images screencap bigger and talk into detail the points in god and bad. one per slide if necessary. Focus on Sunway malls only.

• Consistency 
• Pretty consistent with their typography and systems. Though, layout spacing is a bit lacking. Compatibility in different devices of layout is also a problem.
• Simplicity
• When clicking location start, users would need to keep clicking back and forth if they want to change their starting location.
• Visibility
• There is a lack of icons and logos for stores making users confused.
• Feedback
• No feedback on clicking buttons, icons, and also no feedback when users arrive at their destination
• Error Prevention
• The other mall buttons does not give warning when being redirected to an other page

Add rating system, parking lot check in,