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Over the course of the iterative design process, we had one main lesson. We learned that a lot of the planned features that we thought would be useful would instead overwhelm the user with too much or too confusing information, and this led to user errors and dissatisfaction. If we were to restart this project, we would probably use a minimalist design paradigm from the very start of the project, even before the first paper prototype test. Instead of trying to provide the most useful product for an experienced user, we would tailor our product to prioritize learnability and simplicity first.
Given the chance to restart this project, we would be sure to focus only on user interface elements. We had some issues during the implementation stages (GR4 and GR5) that we eventually realized were not related to how our UI would work. It would have been less stressful and less time-consuming to not try to implement these "mostly system back-end" functions. They were not part of the interface back-end, but actual product's functions, and we realized that implementing them was unnecessary to testing and demonstration of our interface.
Since this section is meant to be reflective and "meta," we can consider what we would do with other types of projects given this experience. With a project that is more difficult to to simplify, after considering this type of project we believe we could implement some iterative learning steps with effective information scent and self-disclosure to enable users to build their way up to complex tasks. This principle is demonstrated in a small way in our choices for the text buttons in our app and how they change, but it can be generalized to any project that requires tasks of increasing difficulty.
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