Validating Ideas
After we had settled with one idea, the Tamagotchi 2.0, we started to create the first minimum viable product that we could validate with our target users. A minimum viable product is essentially a product or service that includes only the most important features for it to work. First, we set a primary goal for our product, which was “make users take care of their health and fitness through taking care of a virtual avatar”. The primary goal came from the idea that the Avatar would have needs that the user needs to take care of by training. For example, if the Avatar is feeling low in energy, it would notify the user about it and the user should go for a run to give the Avatar energy. After we had a primary goal, we decided a basic user flow that wouldn’t have anything extra. The user flow is as follows: 1. Adopt a virtual Avatar, 2. Pay attention to Avatar’s current status, 3. Take care of Avatar by training, 4. Help Avatar recover. These tasks include several features, some of which are more essential than others. The picture below shows the MVP and its features. The line shows which features were included in the MVP. We’ve used a service called Whimsical to do everything online and remotely — it’s worked well and is worth trying!
Based on the user flow we then created a storyboard. We started by thinking of the storyline and what could Jake, our good old persona, do, and how he would feel in every part of the story. We tried to imagine how our users would interact with the product in real life. We also came up with an initial name for the product, which is Polar Partner. We decided to go with a very basic user flow where Jake is unmotivated to train, and Polar Partner makes him go for a run and guides him through the session and recovery. At first, the storyline was very basic and then we added details to make it more like an actual story. Based on the storyline, I used my basic artistic skills to draw a storyboard. We certainly know that there’re more simple ways to create a storyboard, but because we wanted to include the device (smart wristband with projection on skin) in the storyboard, it was just easier to draw it. This link leads you to the storyboard: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14HIt1PviGLy4yBYNIFzrwGHnKt4Wmim7/view?usp=sharing.
Polar Partner is letting Jake know that it’s not breathing properly during his run.
Jake is finished with his run and Polar Partner gives him instructions for cool down and stretching
To validate this MVP, we created a Google form survey with statements and few open ended questions (link to the survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdF-55vwK2ysi2-0BK7zCKed-qC8J8yPHme3hhGKmFf2Dw5Gw/viewform?usp=sf_link). We sent the link to the people that we interviewed in the first user research phase and to few other people who do habitual training 3–4 times a week. We ended up having 10 people who responded to the survey. First, we asked them to look at the storyboard and then respond to the survey. What we found interesting was that the results somewhat varied. In the survey, we had five options (strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1)). We turned the results into numbers and checked the averages of each statement.
To highlight a few varying results, we gathered that the target users have neutral opinion on Polar Partner (Likert average 3.2) and almost all respondents mentioned that feedback is important (Likert average 4.4). Also, we noted that people have a neutral opinion on projected interface (Likert average 3.3), but we got good feedback on the fact that it doesn’t necessarily work well with long sleeves, which is quite obvious in Finland and what we hadn’t thought about. One of the top desired features was the easy-to-read data (Likert average 4.7). The validation gave us great insights on how to proceed further with the idea and solution. We don’t need to “kill the whole baby”, but we certainly need to do some changes based on the feedback we received. It’s true that it’s important to seek feedback actively because there’s almost always something we haven’t had time to consider.
