The Users
Before I even start making User Peronas for my Elements project, I need to actually talk to my target audience to gain insight in their needs/goals. Luckily I have wide range of people to ask, I went up to the Coleraine Campus and I asked some of friends who study Pharmacy questions related to the app and what it would need to help them.
I managed to talk to four of my friends regarding the app, each of different from each other. All four currently study Pharmacy which a course which requires you to know the elements, something you learn in your first year.
Brian, 22
I spend a lot of time studying when I am not out with friends or back at home. The problem I face when it comes to the elements is remember their atomic number and other smaller details regarding them. Of course I could just look at the periodic table but I don’t have one at hand and since I have a phone which I use a lot, an app would be a cool way to remind myself about each element and it’s properties.
Fía, 20
My biggest issue with the elements is trying to remember so much stuff, considering how much we learn in this course it can be easy to forget the smaller things. Details and other things you may thing are irrelevant but are actually extremely important key parts. I may have the periodic table in my student house but I am not always there and it doesn’t even give you the full run down of each element. Honestly an app based on Tinder with the swiping ability is a great idea and I could see it being massively useful to me and others.
Ronan, 21
The periodic table, it’s probably one of the more forgetful things in the course. You go over it in your first year but that’s about it, from second year onwards you’re just sort of expected to know it or atleast have your notes about it. I am more of a visual learner, I love doing the labs as we are doing hands on stuff. The periodic table as an app would be so so great, espeically if its really visual like Tinder is.
Jack, 21
An app would honestly be great help, I spend so much time on my phone it’s ridiculous. I find so much easier to just pull out your phone and find what you’re looking for in seconds, the big blocky textbooks we get just take way too long to find what you’re looking for. I honestly don’t remember much of the elements in general now, we learnt about them two years ago all the way back in our first year, but it’s sort of glossed over since it’s something you would of covered a lot of in high school.
From what I gathered, there was a pattern found between all of them. The periodic table is easily forgotten, which makes sense because there are a lot of different factors within the elements and it’s something that not even the periodic table covers. While the periodic table does house all the elements the information varies per table, some have little to no information others have some. A better way would to consolated it all within one app that is fun to use, something which was agreed upon by all four of my friends.