Koordinates App
A desktop application that lets users track changes made to spatial datasets.
Role
Product Designer
Tools
Figma
Skills
Prototyping
Design System
Experience Design
Interaction Design
Interface Design
Length
1 Year+
Data management, version control and collaboration tools exist in the Geographic Information System (GIS) industry but they’re often inhouse, improvised and don’t transfer outside of the organisation you work for.
Koordinates solves this problem with Sno, an open-source wrapper around Git, which shows Git how to handle spatial data. Sno works well for users familiar with command-line tools, but for everyone else, they need an app to show them what’s going on.
Koordinates solves this problem with Sno, an open-source wrapper around Git, which shows Git how to handle spatial data. Sno works well for users familiar with command-line tools, but for everyone else, they need an app to show them what’s going on.
Quick wireframe sketches.
Quick sketches, flow diagrams and simple wireframes helped us understand familiar steps and actions users were likely to perform in the app.
Flow diagram showing how a user would update the app.
Git and some of the surrounding concepts are a novel idea for many users in this industry, so we aimed to make the interface easy to understand. We borrowed some ideas from other version control solutions as well as design patterns from software used in the GIS industry.
Wireframes through to more competent designs.
The app seamlessly combines with our web-based platform. We built on our existing pattern library in Figma and linked it to both products, this meant any new elements designed for the app were available to our web-based platform, and vice versa.
Consistent design between the web-based platform and the Koordinates App.
Feedback was gathered from mid-fidelity designs. We conducted testing with in-house GIS and git experts, which helped us further refine our interface and flows.
Feedback via Figma comments, Slack messages, photographs of whiteboards and so on.
An early milestone was a series of prototypes that showcased the main user flows and functions to key clients. This was followed by a working prototype of the app which continued a similar cyclical design, feedback and development process.
Typical example of a prototype showing a new function or design.
Like many workplaces in 2020, the whole team worked remotely during this beta build. Development was fast-paced and we were often creating elements that were handed over to developers the following day. Collaborating with in-house experts also presented challenges, as we had to balance UX design best practices with bias and prescriptive feedback.
In the end, we produced a beta version of the app that works well and has impressed some of our key clients 🎉
Initial user interviews have been positive, but we see where our assumptions have let us down. The app is still in development and with more user feedback we can get a clearer picture of how we can make the app experience even better.
In the end, we produced a beta version of the app that works well and has impressed some of our key clients 🎉
Initial user interviews have been positive, but we see where our assumptions have let us down. The app is still in development and with more user feedback we can get a clearer picture of how we can make the app experience even better.