Situation: A fitness wearable company will release a new product in Q4, 2020. They have a demo app and a handful (100+) products in the hands of users. This is the 3rd generation of the product. This is an ongoing project and will be updated accordingly.
Customer Solution: Their customers have requested the ability to compete with themselves and/or friends or see how they have improved in the form of a leaderboard.
Competitive Analysis I analyzed four (4) apps. Details as shown below.
User Research Interview Questions
Based on the target user defined by the company, I recruited 20 people based on personas and conducted an interview session to understand their usage of fitness apps. Questions are based on need, task, and value.
Empathy Map Based on the personas and response to interviews and usage data, I defined the pain points and identified the gaps between what they say and do when using the app.
Interesting Outcome: Many users enjoyed competing one-on-one with a friend publicly, but wanted to view results on a broader competition to be private. However, this was not true of users actively engaged in a specific training goal (ie. weight lifting or fitness competition).
Competition Journey Mapping This app had a strong NPS for usage and tracking. I inserted the journey map to include the leaderboard and competition segment.
The research side of me wanted to know what people thought of me. I asked friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and even my kids. My daughters were my harshest critics.
The result was comforting. It was also uplifting. As a mom re-entering the workforce I have worked to show my worth.
My portfolio in 2006 included clippings of published articles, flyers I designed and thank you notes from clients. Now I can show off my work digitally. Luckily I have saved many of my designs and final products, but as I pivot to explain my role in user experience, I have to show my thought process and the roadmap I used to get to the end result. Fortunately, I am prolific and save everything. Now, I just have to showcase what others may deem worthwhile.
Event Experience to UX
Every time I planned an event, it was with the end-user (guest) in mind. My focus was on the pragmatic, demonstrative, transformative and transcendent. Stay with me. This is a long and winding road. Yes, planning an event takes the same thought, research, agility and execution as a well designed webform.
People hate to feel stupid. Don’t make them have to think. Here is how I did this with events.
The Pragmatic: Fulfill basic needs
How will they enter? With whom do they want to connect?
Are they wearing appropriate footwear? If not, how do I help?
Help them feel confident. ‘Yes, you are in the right place!’
Demonstrative: Emotional satisfaction
Weddings? Easy. People never believe me, but weddings were the easiest events for me to plan. I loved the strong emotions, connections and opportunities weddings afforded. I understood how to create a meaningful event.
Force an over-worked salesperson to a meeting AND pay for it? Get 4,000 people through registration? Now the stakes are high.
Accomplishing a successful event requires a carefully crafted tone and seamless flow. Sensory appeal is a factor here, and careful planning and attention to detail helps. The best events reach all five of the senses, sometimes so subtly that the guest doesn’t even recognize it—though it certainly influences their experience.
Hands-on experiences create a more fulfilling experience. My goal has always been to make sure guests connect with the right people. This is as true for registration lost and found, tech support as it is for networking or VIP experiences.
Transcendence
I’m serious. Have you ever had a conversation with someone that left you so inspired, you were ready to change the world? Events can spark this experience at any time- kick off meetings, investor or board meetings, user events, fundraisers and, yes, weddings.
However, all of the basic needs must be met before you can accomplish this.
Yes, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is applicable at your staff meeting.
Where is the bathroom?
When does this end?
Will I be fed?
Who is sitting next to me?
Can I call in?
What is the wifi password?
Where can I plug in my phone?
All of these need to be answered before any business can be done.
Now Digital
When you are in front of someone in real life you can read their body language. See their eyes as they dart around looking for the exit.
When your guest is a visitor on your mobile platform landing page you have 3 seconds to impress her. How you do this requires thoughtful design, clear direction and a tested, proven flow.
Draft of app flow.
Unlike events, with a website or an app, you have the ability to test, pivot, test, change, test, improve.
App mock up draft
Final Result
With UX, your end result can be improved, molded, tweaked into the perfect fit for your target demographic. The same cannot be said for your Great-Aunt Mildred’s opinion of your first dance choice.
The City of Bee Cave is experiencing a workforce crisis. My team identified four solutions, created and conducted surveys and presented the results to the Economic Development Board in Bee Cave, TX.
My role included research, idea formation, survey question creation and editing and presentation/script editing. I identified five cities similar in size and demographics to Bee Cave and reached out to city staff to conduct interviews on their workforce labor shortage issues.
Traditionally, the E&D meeting sees about twenty participants. We had to request a larger room because of the high number of registrations (50% increase).
The Desert Botanical Garden knew it had a wayfinding problem. Visitors constantly wandered around looking lost, people showed up for appointments at the wrong location, and staff spent a lot of time giving directions and escorting people to their destination. The popular tourist destination had begun looking at maps and signage to try to address these problems when my smart colleagues in the planning and exhibit department stepped in and recommended a larger research project to discover and define our underlying wayfinding problems. Along with me, our core team during this phase included other members of the Marketing & Communications team, Visitor Experience (Admissions), Event Experience and later, the plant research department when we learned another important lesson.
photo courtesy of JRDesign.
Originally, the marketing staff assumed alerting visitors on the website as to what to expect on a visit would improve the visitor experience. However, it was soon discovered that visitors often arrived without preparing for their visit. We learned to ask, what is the question rather than, how do we solve this.
Objective
To build a comprehensive understanding of our institution’s wayfinding problem and create a foundation for future redesign work.
Process
Over the course of a few weeks, our team walked every path on the property. We tried to put ourselves in the mindset of people who knew nothing about the space (and this was easy, in many cases, as we had 56 acres to cover.) As we walked, we looked around to see what cues the space gave us.
Welcome sign blocked the membership booth as well and added a confusing bisection.
Problems with signage were ubiquitous. The color and contrast of many signs were not sufficient, and their placement often didn’t support easy navigation. Sometimes there weren’t enough signs:
Can you see the sign? The most common question staff and volunteers heard was, ‘How do I get out of here?’
Sometimes there were too many:
I wish I had the ‘before’ of our event signage. This is an accurate example.
We spoke with key people and departments who spend a lot of time giving visitors directions: Security, volunteers, member info desks, gift shop attendants, and admission staff at offices near the entrance points. We asked them about the common questions they received and their strategies for getting people from place to place; we also collect any materials (letters, maps, etc.) to help them find their way.
Co-creative workshops
It was important for our team to bring visitors, members and staff into our process. We employed heuretics. We held interviews and joined visitors to identify and articulate some of the key problems.
Design Sprints
The summer is too hot for most visitors, but that is when staff has the time and space to implement changes. To energize our team and test some assumptions, we did multiple ‘design sprints’ – a focused time of brainstorming, prototyping and learning about one specific problem. For the first sprint we chose the parking lot–the first point where visitors got mixed up.
Our entrance drive has two staff and service entrances before visitors arrive at the parking lot. There is a lot of vegetation in between parking lot lanes. There are also slightly visible buildings that were often confused with an entrance building. There are no consistent, official names for these two large zones. In practice, staff uses many different terms to refer to them, depending on how they perceive the space or how long they’ve worked at the Garden.
First curve. Vast property.
Our prompt for the sprint: How can we create a path that visitors can follow to get where they need to go?
After the first day of brainstorming, JRC developed a concept consisting of a new zone system :A, B, C . We decided to test this idea for deliveries (food and beverage ) and private busses (school and tourist). We instructed staff to include the entrance ‘title’ in follow- up and ordering forms. We created temporary (yet quite polished-looking) signs to post up within the hospital that would lead vendors between these zones.
After we’d posted the temporary signs, we intercepted visitors who were not in a hurry and asked them to give us feedback as they used it to find their destination.
People loved the concept:
I almost turned in the wrong driveway, but my husband pointed out the sign. .” Visitor
The simplicity is good.” –Staff member
I could have used this yesterday. I needed a GPS.” –Visitor
I didn’t realize there were multiple entrances, I’m always dropping people off in the wrong spot. -bus driver
We learned a lot from this little design intervention; not only that the concept had some promise, but that by making our work visible in this way we could raise excitement from members and staff.
Our whole team gathered together with all of our field notes and went through a multi-day process of distilling key insights.
We pulled out 20 important findings, and 12 guiding design principles to help guide eventual design work. Some examples of key findings:
Visitors do not understand which trail is which
There is often not a clear distinction between visitor and staff-only areas
Pre-appointment directions and instructions are inconsistent
Examples of design principles included:
Progressively disclose wayfinding information
Always a cue in sight
Reduce stress and cognitive load
The next step was to tackle getting guests through the gate.
Short-term ‘quick wins’
Prototyping and testing new signage and maps
One quick win for our team was color-coding our maps and trailhead signs. We went through a process of vetting the information on them, working with visitor facing departments to optimize them, and giving them a visual refresh.
In addition to signs, we worked with a local design team to develop wayfinding signage. We showed drafts of these maps to visitors and asked them to show us how they arrived at the entrance; where they parked; and where they currently were sitting. We found these new maps much more effective than the prior version. Below is a sample for our redesigned map:
Original map
Outcome
After giving the final presentation to various levels of leadership, this project continued to progress. Along with our team members in the Facilities department, JRC went through a process of selecting an expert wayfinding design firm to develop a new detailed system.
Additionally, visitors and members indicated they were disappointed in the lack of plant signage. They also didn’t know which sign referenced which plant, because they were in Latin and the common names could indicate any number of nearby cacti.
Next Phase: Low-hanging fruit
Latin version with a nickname and location
The Direct of Exhibits worked with the Horticure department to label additional plants of interest. The prompts for plants of interest were ones that volunteers often noted on their tours or heard people asked while on a tour. The signs included a small image of the plant as well as other names it may go by which were typically the Spanish names for the plant.
Bloom time, family and genus added. Protected plants are designated as such.Temporary signage added to temporarily potted plants.
Event signage
An overlooked signage issue was often the event signage. Each department designed and printed their own signs. There were no formal parameters. Signs were printed on 9X11 sheets of paper and taped to a freestanding sign holder. The holder was meant to hold one sign at a time. Often up to four weddings and three educational classes were held throughout the Garden. These sign holders were moveable which caused confusion if an arrow then pointed in the wrong direction. It was an eyesore!
This is not the exact sign holder, but very similar. Now picture taping 4 to 6 signs on this.
First Iteration
The easiest win was to create some sort of cohesion. The design team came up with a beautiful sign. However, staff soon discovered the black background with white letters used too much ink (wasteful spending for a non-profit).
Pivot
The designer added beautiful images of plants to the top of the sign, but this required colored ink which not all departments had.
The next changes included:
Time & date of the event so support staff knew when to remove old signs.
Image of the venue so guests knew they were in the right place
Additional holders that could be added or removed
Larger, more visible arrows
Human Arrows
The event staff would stand near the signage to answer questions or direct guests if they missed a sign. This would often happen for weddings and social events, because people were talking as they walked, not exploring the garden as a tourist would.
Other areas where people were confused were identified and additional signs were added.
The Garden Today
Years after this project started, the same map format and signage continues to work. While this project was a stopgap before the Garden had the funds to reconfigure the entrance and ‘welcome portal’ it created the first User Experience of my career.
