Amplifying the Voice of Military Families, a UX case study echoing the relevance of a multimedia approach to tell stories
“Radio is like television, only the pictures are better” Clive Anderson
For this ultimate project through my UX immersive experience, with two classmates Saba and Tyler, I worked on a very cool challenge: the design of a mobile application for a radio program about military community living.
When you are a “geek of communication” like I am, there is nothing better than to get to work on media products. Media platforms are like human souls, meant to get better at connecting people and delivering meaningful messages; breaking deafening silences, allowing every tone of voice to be heard, almost everywhere. How exciting to spend time on a product created to broadcast stories!
Research
We started our design process by launching our research: recruiting users to interview and others to test the existing product. It was not easy given the specificity of the target audience but we managed to find people within the military community who agreed to answer our questions.
Also, we interviewed our client: the host and founder of Military Home Life radio, to better understand the needs of the business and her expectations. She provided us with some statistics and facilitated access to a pool of active users that would agree to talk to us about their experience on the existing platform.
When we stepped in, the product consisted of a website that had been up for around 8 months and according to the host of the show, most of the listeners were using the product on their phones, reason why she thought it was time for her to offer a mobile application that would allow for comfort and ease of use.
When we started to dig in the research, I understood that the role of the host of the show was central. Her experience with creating beautiful multimedia masterpieces, connecting with people and telling their stories was what made people interact with Military Home Life and spread the word about it. Another important point to start our exploration was that the Military Home life social media account were fairly active, publishing the content (news, music, interviews) and collecting likes and shares, especially around content featuring famous people related to military life. Social networks seemed to be where the community interacted and consumed the content, something we would keep in mind while designing.
For the research, we had defined two main objectives: getting to understand military families, their hopes, needs and their appetite for this type of product. Then we wanted to research established media platform to understand what made them successful, what it was the user saw in them that we could use and incrementally adapt for our audience.
Aside from user interviews, we worked on a survey and spent a significant portion of our time actually consuming the content of the website and of partner organizations for ourselves to get familiar with military life. We also listened to the one hour segment of the show on DC radio gov.
The survey did not work for us. The fact that the survey was left unanswered is in itself interesting. It may be for a variety of reasons from the exhaustion of our personal networks after ten weeks of tenacious solicitation to the underrepresentation of militaries within those very same networks. But maybe; it could be because there are some secrecy and privacy around the military world and that answering a survey is just not something that would have happened anyway. If that would be the case, that would be consistent with what I heard in the interviews, what I read or listened. Fascinating how what is not said tells as much as what is. All that makes me think about the importance of selecting appropriate research tools depending on your user base and how finding what works is crucial. In this case, our best opportunity came from the magic “snowball rule” and how someone referred us to other potential interviewees. At the end of the day, the military community is a big family.
Interviewing Veterans and family members
I enjoyed interviewing militaries. They were mainly veterans, and they told me about what military life had been for them, how they approached the transition back to civil life and, as I asked, their habits in terms of media platforms and podcasts.
I did not know what to expect and I discovered a brand new world made of a mix of sorrow and excitement. Some of the people interviewed had bittersweet feelings about military life but what was prevalent was the pride of belonging to a very unique community and having participated in something bigger than the self. Something that I had not expected either was how protective they still were towards civilian society now that they were out. How they still wanted to make sure we would be ok, that they would not shock with their stories, how they insisted in sparing our consciousness and, yet paradoxically, how they seemed to fear of being forgotten. That was especially true for those that had been deployed in countries where US military bases are still actives but not really featured in the news anymore.
We rapidly found out that the military community, even though it was marked by the stigma of mental health, was incredibly resilient, trying to educate the world to the fact that they sometimes needed help and resources for their special needs but also that they were amazing people who could create synergies and move mountains.
We also interviewed Spouses and one told me that there is a need to amplify the voice of militaries and their families, especially the positive stories that usually get buried into the flow of other news. We also heard a lot about the struggles at the hour of transitioning back and how hard it can be for Spouses to leave their lives behind and commit to their loved ones’ careers.
All this is important in understanding how the community works, what they may need from each other, what type of support and networking opportunities they are craving for and then design around that because, at the end of the day, military families want to find resources within the community and worked together to change the narrative.
I learned a lot, especially because I had very few knowledge on the topic to start with. So far for me, the word veteran, for example, was nothing more than an unchecked option on a form. Really, as a non-US citizen, I had not paid enough attention to the importance of militaries in my host country; even though it was everywhere I had not seen it and then all of a sudden I saw it everywhere especially with veteran’s day around the corner, then Thanksgiving and the stories of deployed militaries receiving packages from loved one filled with warm words and gummy bears.
The research conducted was as interesting as it was limited due to time and resources constraints. Ideally, I would have wanted for us to be in contact with more actual users of the platform, especially for testing purposes, and spend time exploring alternatives like third-party applications options. With all that said, constraints can be beautiful creative drivers. When you’re forced to stay in a defined square you become very inventive as of how to bring inside the light you cannot capture outside.
Research Synthesis
The synthesis of our research; the analysis of competitors and partners draw patterns in front of our eyes along with opportunities to work on :
- a multimedia platform mobile application…
- …that would feature stories…
- …for avid learners looking for community resources and support …
- …sometimes far away from home.
The synthesis of the research also allowed for painting the portrait of personas that would guide us in our designs. As illustrated below, Nadia is our primary persona.
Nadia, our primary Persona
We then started to brainstorm around how to incorporate what we had learned from the research to the mobile app. To share my ideas with the other members of the team I opted for a paper prototype animated in Invision as you can see below. This type of techniques allows for basic quick improvements such as finding places where there is a need for a certain type of buttons, etc; it gives an overview of the designs to test.
Paper prototype for team brainstorming
My main focus was to propose a platform that would put the spotlight on each media individually (music, podcasts, videos, articles,…). The reason being that it was a recurring finding of the research: the importance of learning and how each media would bring texture and increase the “granularity” of the overall experience. In other words, the more different media used to convey a message, the more vivid and emotionally precise it becomes.
Wireframing
After that, we did a design studio to mix and extract our best ideas. We came up with wireframes for the three main components of our app: the onboarding, the listening part, and the exploring part. From there, each of us worked on one component, I did the onboarding part.
According to the user’s interviews, the current product was not conveying info regarding the perks of being a member and why one would want to register. According to the client, developing the membership was one of her goals for the year to come and therefore I spent some time to work on that. I came up with basics questions for the users to answer to get specific recommendations tailored to them as well as info to help them better navigate the product and learn about their options. I made sure user could opt out at any time, I have learned that “navigation claustrophobia” is a real thing.
Testing
With my colleagues, we then combined everything together to conduct some testing. We received a lot of feedback. The users told us that they sometimes felt trapped with no way to go back to a previous screen; there were also comments about features they used on their usual platform that were missing and could be of interest. At this point in our project, testing was a very informative time and we learned a lot from it, taking notes and eventually incorporating changes to our last version.
Testing and adjusting designs can be a lot of fun. Given that there was some confusion about which icon to use for features such as save, favorites, playlists and others, we drew icons and asked testers to associate them with one action word they thought described the best what they meant. This is an example of the testing that was made for the project.
The final design for the onboarding
Next Steps
I believe that for next steps, there could be some work done on the website, such as transforming the landing page and including it in a broader marketing strategy that would redirect the user to the app with a call for action and invitation to join the community. Also spending some time thinking about the content strategy. This could help to keep the audience engaged and bring potential new listeners.
To conclude, I would say that the product we designed is certainly a good base to do testing on Military Home Life users and collect feedback to bring the project to the next level. Now is probably also a good time to invite developers around the table and with their insights on what is feasible, further explore the desirability around the product.
On a side note, what I have liked the most throughout those 10 weeks of UX Design Immersive Bootcamp was the opportunity to work on projects that would require from me to become more familiar with topics and industries that I did not know. I don’t think there is a better way to indulge in serious learning than having to dive into a new world for two weeks. I am grateful for everyone that gave time to help us with the project and shared their stories.
