A Song of UX and Measures.
Week 6
We now arrive in the final stretch of before starting our design, or as I like to call it, the “OMG it didn’t test well, what do we do?” time frame. Aka, the last season of Game of Thrones. As you can probably surmise from last week’s results of our storyboard prototype validation, we were in a bit of a jam. Our biggest feature of the Tamagotchi idea had a lukewarm reception, and what we thought was a killer solution turned out to be a dud. While we could say that some of the testers really liked it and continued the Tamagotchi idea, we risk falling in love with the solution and not the problem.
Rethinking the Problem.
It was a bit of a blow in terms of progress for us, however it was not too difficult to get back on track. Our previous research along with our new learning from the validation helped us realize that we were too enamored with the Tamagotchi concept and not focusing on the problems. For one, we needed to tackle AI guidance for training and while Tamagotchi was indeed a good incentivizer for training, it was not a replacement for social interaction. In the end, it seems that the problem was still about trying to humanize the training data and packaging it into actionable recommendations. From there, we pivoted to a more general concept: IPAs.
No we are not talking about your favorite Indian Pale Ale with classic Northwest hops, we are talking Intelligent Personal Assistant similar to Siri or Alexa. One of the things that IPAs do extremely well is provide easy to understand information to users. Hands free interaction is possible through speech, making this also a better form of interaction to users that are unable to access their device at the time of use. Now, think about our target audience and their problems. As trainers, they are focused on the training meaning that they most likely have limited interactions with their device during the training. They also want to know how to use the data to improve but don’t necessarily understand everything about it. It seems to us that an IPA solution is a perfect fit which is where our new direction is taking us.
Proof of Concept Ideation.
In order to test this new direction, we will create a prototype for validation of whether an IPA is desirable to the trainers. It would be a bit too challenging to build an actual IPA but we have decided to use Dialog Flow to create a Speech Interface with pre-decided scripts based on what we think trainers would ask an assistant for and how an actual assistant would respond. Other than that, having a more familiar interface would also help the user contextualize the idea, which is why an interactive mobile prototype will also be created.
User Experience Goals
If you are still reading at this point, you may be wondering “Okay but what does the above have to do with your title UX and Measures?” Well you make a fair point, and indeed, if the title and context does not match, it makes the whole thing feel meaningless doesn’t it? The way the article is presented affects the experience of the reader, just like the way a solution is visualized affects the experience of the trainer. If it doesn’t match the user expectations, the user feels that the experience is confusing and unclear. You see what I’m getting at? Yes, this was a very confusing way to say that one of our underlying user experience goals is to be Clear.
Information, when presented in a confusing manner like this article, can do more harm than good for the user, frustrating them when they can’t seem to find what they need. It is our hope that using the Polar Partner, users know where to find what they need, both in the visual interface aspect as well as through the voice interface. The more effective we are at presenting to the users with the information they need for training, the better the experience of Polar Partner will be. This also ties into the usability and usefulness perception of the product as based on the CUE experience model that we will be using to evaluate our product with.
Another experience we will design for is Athletic. This is more along the lines of visual UI design. As Polar’s branding uses strong reds contrasting on black and white, it invokes boldness, competition, and exhilaration. As the product we are designing will fit into the polar ecosystem, we plan to continue the visual aesthetic of Polar and provide the same experience.
Measures and Evaluation
As for how we will measure all this, quantitatively, we will use Maze.design’s testing platform to determine the error and bounce rate when interacting with the interactive prototype. Maze.design is a really powerful tool, allowing us to deploy prototypes from Sketch, Figma, XD to testers remotely. It also tracks completion and error rate based on optimal page flow as well as heat maps the users clicks. Be sure to check them out if you are interested in testing: Maze, Design that works.
Qualitatively, we will use interviews along with the meCue questionnaire to capture how users feel about the overall experience as well as their reported thoughts on the matter.
That’s all for now, next week we will be going in and properly start IA and even some wire framing.
See you next week!
