Desmos is a next generation graphing calculator, which is offered free online as a responsive, web-based app. It is different from other math programs in that numbers and equations are the sole input for creating artistic graphs. Users also enjoy the “slider” function, which allows them to explore the function of variables within an equation, as well as create movable animations with their graphs.
Students teachers, and math enthusiasts use Desmos to create "math art".
Desmos seeks to give users an easy way to share and explore the beautiful and intuitive graphs that their users are creating.
In a sense, we were asked to explore ways turn this graphing calculator app into a social platform.
Our job was specifically to find ways to turn Desmos into a community of people who share, favorite, and “fork” each other’s graphs. To do this, among other things, we created browse features that are coupled with user profiles.
After doing a fair amount of research involving interviewing and surveying Desmos users, we came up with the following personas:
Going through the information architecture of the current website, we had to solve how this new social feature would interact with the rest of the site, and be sure its implementation would be cohesive and seamlessly work from a user perspective. Here is the sitemap we proposed:
In an effort to gamify the experience of using Desmos, we offered a cyclical user flow, which encourages users to return to the site regularly. Here is the synopsis of that proposal:
I designed the following wireframes to go with our vision:
