Minh tu Huynh, Ginsu Eddy, Carson Bryant, Jesse Sershon,
Timothy Joo, Daniel Baek, Michelle Guan

Role: Product Designer
January 2022 - March 2022

CHALLENGE

INTRODUCING AFFINITY OS

CONTEXT

We had ten weeks in our mobile app design class to design an original mobile operating (OS) system from scratch with seven amazing designers. Our OS called, AffinityOS, was critiqued by professional designers and engineers on how our OS operates and feels.

A Nintendo DS inspired flip phone OS that focuses on using technology to make real-world connections while giving a retro feel

Want to see more of our OS and its apps we designed? Scroll all the way down!

Curious about how we got to our solution? Check out our process!

INTRODUCTION

How did it began?

Right off the gecko, we were given a challenge:

Design an original mobile operating system within the course of ten weeks

We didn’t know where to begin and no constraints were given but my team and I were eager to dive in and explore the creativity of this prompt.

EXPLORING OUR INTERESTS

My team and I spent a substantial amount of time on the conceptual concept of what our OS should be and what it should feel like. Through initial brainstorming and mood boarding sessions, we came up with an OS concept that’s disruptive, challenging, and fun to explore!

Our Initial OS Requirements

To scope the prompt to make it manageable, we decided these were the requirements we wanted in our mobile operating system.

  1. A foldable phone form factor

  2. An aesthetic that exudes nostalgia and retro

  3. An OS that builds social communities together

These initial OS requirements may sound complex to blend into an OS system, but we had a plan to get users’ validation through impromptu user research!

DEFINING OUR DESIGN PRINCIPLES THROUGH RESEARCH

Although this class mainly focused on conceptual UI thinking, I advocated quick user research to my team because we can’t be solution-oriented without defining our problems and pain points.

We sent out a quick survey and conducted user interviews. Based on the 40 responses and seven interviews, we can define our some of pain points are:

  1. New Mental Model - A dual screen phone factor can be challenging when designing for an OS b/c it requires the user to make a new mental model.

  2. Nostalgia is subjective - Implementing nostalgia and retro ideas into a mobile OS can be complex and subjective to what does that mean for those users.

  3. Portability - How big will the foldable phone will be bc holding a big phone can be a turn off to the users.

What is the problem then?

Based on the pain points, my team and I realized many peers wants to build community, form meaningful social relationship, and reminscense on the nostalgia they’ve once had. The current OS such as iOS and Android feels functional but it lacks the individuality and social networking like the Nintendo DS product line did. We wants to bring nostalgia into our own OS to solve the disconnect between our phones, our human-interaction skills, and ourselves to bring back the nostalgia we know when forming new friendships with our own Nintendo DSi.

Defining the principles

As a result, we were able to finalize our design principles as we proceed into design sprints and start designing our OS! These principles will be the core of our design work and sets the direction we are trying to proceed in.

BACK TO BACK DESIGN SPRINTS x5

In the class, we had a total of five design sprints to start and finalize our OS system so we were hustling to define our phone factor, design the required apps, and incorporate feedback.

How did the initial sprint start out?

The initial sprint was defining the UX pattern, our form factor, and ideating rough wireframes of our OS.

Phone Factor

Since we are doing a foldable phone, we ultimately pursued the Surface Duo because there are public resources to use their mockups and screen size felt appropriate per professor’s feedback.

UX Patterns

This allows to define how the OS system should feel and look based our design principles.

For the next couple of design sprints…

Now that we defined our foundation of UX patterns and form factor, it was all about design and feedback loops every sprint. Every sprint was made in two weeks, and there were many changes as we continued to design and hustle our OS system.

Our requirement for this was to design 12 - 15 apps for our mobile OS. I was in charge of designing the music and contacts apps.

Here are snapshots of what each sprint looked like! It consists of many sketches, wireframes, and medium-fidelity designs that got us closer to the final solution.

What was the overarching feedback from all of the sprints?

Throughout our five sprints, we received consistent feedback that we struggled to tackle perfectly as we encountered the same problems.

  1. A lack of consistency in the apps - many apps didn’t feel cohesive regarding the design principles we defined early.

  2. Design language doesn’t feel uninformed - we didn’t fully define our typography and visual elements, leaving us a lot of room for mistakes and inconsistency.

  3. Our scope was way too big - Between our 3rd and 4th sprints, we were trying many apps for our OS, but it led to a lack of quality in our work, so we had to scope down more to make it manageable.

FINAL SOLUTION

To recap…

Affinity OS is a Nintendo DS inspired flip phone OS that
focuses on using technology to make real-world connections while giving a retro feel

Below is our OS key features, design language, and the apps we designed!

REFLECTION

How do you feel about this project?

This project was one of the projects I got to have creative freedom in terms of visual and UI elements. It was stimulating to tackle a big prompt because there were many creative directions that my team and I could have gone. Still, it was refreshing to see how fun and collaborative to define the direction of what we wanted in our mobile OS system. The scalability of this project was tricky, as we had a difficult time balancing the right amount of scope to make it manageable and realistic for the team. However, I grew from this experience and learned what working together in a bigger team is like!

Any results?

Professional designers and developers critiqued our OS from the tech industry and they rated each OS system out of five star. We are proud to say that we received 4.5 out of 5 stars for our OS!!

Huge Shoutout to Team Echo

Thank you to Ginsu, Carson, Tim, Jesse, Michelle, and Daniel for creating a fun and safe work environment! I had an amazing time collaborating with these awesome people and I’ve learned so much from each person on the team. I can’t wait to see what’s next for everyone!