Zoom, Social Isolation and the Elderly
“We spend a lot time designing the bridge, but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it.” – Dr. Prabhjot Singh
Introduction to User Experience Design
General Assembly UXDI Galápagos, Project 1
My Role: UX Researcher with Adi Fine and Rebecca Farber| Duration: 2 Weeks | Project Status: Complete
Project Overview
This was the first project of the 12-week User Experience Design Immersive program run by General Assembly.
The goal was to deliver an extension to an existing remote communication application to solve a problem that we had defined through research.
There has been an explosion in the use of video conferencing applications during the societal shutdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We looked into how the eldery are experiencing this new normal.
Our research didn’t support the initial assumptions that the eldery would be struggling with the technology because their hearing and visual capabilities are in decline.
However, we did find that some tech savvy elderly people were experiencing frustration trying to get their less computer literate peers onto apps like Zoom.
We developed an extension to the Zoom scheduling interface so a meeting host could indicate a participant had a special need. The App would suggest settings to designed to make it easier for the participant to join the meeting and give the host the options of previewing the invitation email sent to the guest, so they could see what their participant could see if they had to help them join the meeting over the phone.
A second round Mid-Fidelity prototype testing confirmed this idea was viable, but the previewing functionality needed further iteration and testing to make it work.
Scope of Work
The Problem Space for this project was remote communication during a period of social isolation during a pandemic shutdown
Process
We followed the Double Diamond framework of UX development.
First Diamond: Design the Right Thing
Discover: Research based on our initial hypothesis.
Define: Take the research findings and determine what problem needed to be solved.
Second Diamond: Design Things Right.
Design: Design a solution, test it and refine it.
Deliver: We are not yet at the point of delivering a final product.
RESEARCH PHASE (Discover + Define)
Hypothesis
People over 65 years in age need custom features that cater to their physical and technological limitations in a video-conferencing application, in order to motivate them to connect with family and friends more frequently, therefore reducing social isolation.
Assumptions:
Users over the age of 65:
- Have physical limitations that impact their usage of video-conferencing apps (COVID, stamina, eyesight, hearing).
- Will want to use familiar technology and are resistant to change
- Will want only basic features that prioritize communication
Initial Problem Statement:
How might we provide people over 65 a customized application that addresses their physical and technological limitations and motivates them to use video-conferencing more willingly and more often?
Goal of Research
We set out to test our initial hypothesis and assumptions through research. This is a key step in ensuring you Design the Right Thing!
Methodology.
We interviewed five elderly people over Zoom. This might have skewed our results, but it was the only option during a period of social distancing.
Synthesis » Affinity Mapping
We used the Affinity Mapping technique to find commonalities in the interview responses.
The key takeaways were
- Elderly people experience video conferencing just like the rest of us, they did not report a series of issues that could be explained by the physical decline of aging. A major initial assumption was not validated
- Some users are active and willing to explore possibilities of the technology, while others are passive, relying on others to set them up and just using the basic functions to communicate with family and friends
- Two of our respondents reported a very specific issue: frustration trying to get less computer literate peers onto a video conference. This would be the problem we decided to solve during the Design phase of the project.
Personas
To give this problem a face we developed the Personas of Victor the Volunteer and Analog Annie.
Revised Problem Statement
We expressed the new problem through the characters of Victor and Annie.
PROBLEM: The pain point for both Victor and Annie that they are isolated due to the pandemic and have not been able to replace in person contact with a remote interaction.
GOAL: The opportunity is to help Victor help Annie clear the digital divide that stops them communicating fully during the pandemic? In this case they are using the zoom video conferencing application.
How Might We help people invite their technologically naive older friends and relatives onto a Zoom Video Conference call in a way that reduces the time required and the frustration experienced by both the call creator and their invitee, and prevents the invitee from dropping out of a community increasingly reliant on video-conferencing?
RESEARCH » DESIGN
Insight 1. Annie experiences the Zoom meeting invite email as a maze of text and links » Feature 1. Replace text links with buttons.
Insight 2. Annie has too many decisions make to get into a meeting » Feature 2. Let Victor make these decisions for her when he sets up the meeting.
Insight 3. Victor finds troubleshooting Annie’s problem hard because he can’t see what she sees on her screen » Feature 3. Show Victor a preview of the invitation that will be sent to Annie.
DESIGN PHASE (Discover + Define)
This is the beginning of the second diamond. In this expansive phase we tried out new design ideas, before refining them through rounds of usability testing.
Design Studio: Sketching + Concepting
Our early ideas were a combination of brainstorming and quick hand drawing, Sketch-Storming, to home in on a solution.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
We developed these ideas as low-fidelity hand drawn wireframes in the Sketch app and turned them into prototypes in Invision.
Link to Testing Prototype
Initial User Testing: First Round
We conducted usability testing with 5 people using this prototype. We found:
Users, in the persona of the host, could easily find the link for people with special needs, and then define the participants’ needs, but they had trouble seeing the utility of the email-preview functionality.
This might have been because the task required the user to have two persona’s in mind. The users kept slipping into the perspective of Annie. To keep the user in the mind of the host, we added the opening Zoom process to the mid-fidelity wireframes.
The lo-fidelity wireframes did not provide space for long headings and explanations. We decided to add these to the mid-level wireframes in the hope the users would better understand the functionality. We made the language of these texts more consistent with the existing Zoom interface. This might also suggest if further A/B testing of the language was required.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
We adjusted our design based on the responses the first round of usability testing and developed mid-fidelity wireframes in the Sketch app and turned them into prototypes in Invision for a second round of testing
Prototype used in Testing (no Hotspot Hinting)
https://invis.io/BSXJFUOYRMV#/419909534_Open_Zoom_App
Prototype with HotSpot Hinting
https://invis.io/7GXJFULK34N#/419909534_Open_Zoom_App
User Testing: Second Round
We conducted usability testing with 5 people using this prototype. We collected more quantitative data: Task Direct Success/Indirect Success/Failure, Time taken and user evaluation of ease of the task. We found:
The revised language, which was more consistent with rest of the Zoom interface did not prevent the user finding the screen for special needs or defining the participants’ impairment.
None of the users succeeded at the task of opening the preview of the email that would be sent to the participant, but once they were directed to the preview they reported that the functionality would definitely help someone like Annie.
Next Steps
We have a workable design, we just need to make it work.
The most urgent issue is communicating the value of the host being able to preview the email sent to the participant. We recommend:
- Moving the description of this functionality below the link to be consistent with the rest of the page.
- Testing this on a high-fidelity prototype to have the link in color
- Changing the language of the link to “See the Email your Participant will receive.
Another issue. Two of the ten users in both rounds of testing flagged the term “Computer Illiterate” as pejorative. This should be looked into.
Build out the options for Hearing and Visually impaired users.
Ensure host is copied to the invitation email sent to the participant.
Investigate the Schedule and New Meeting buttons on the Zoom homepage. 2 of 5 participants had trouble finding the right link when tasked with “setting up a meeting for next Tuesday.”
The option of presetting the participants video and audio permissions so they don’t have to deal with popup dialog boxes after clicking the button to join the meeting needs engineering and legal sign-off and based on that further design.
What I Learned
This was an intense first up experience. The General Assembly UXDI course throws students in the deep end. It is not so much immersive as a plunge. I had to “embrace the ambiguity” and accept that I would make mistakes, “It’s the Journey, Stupid!”
The process of interviewing and usability testing was challenging. You need to remember to keep to the script. The conversation will move in many directions, this is often where the best information is revealed, but you must always return to the script to ensure all interviewees answer the same questions and all testers do the same tasks.
Your initial hypothesis needs to be validated. If we had developed an app based on our assumptions we would have designed the wrong thing! Working at the intersection of design and the scientific method is perfect for me.
Design the Right Thing. Design Things Right.
