UX RESEARCH | UX DESIGN | ACCESSIBLE DESIGN | PARTICIPTORY DESIGN
1. Preliminary Interview — Our first interview with the participant was based around understanding the participant's usage of technology and her needs regarding her devices.
2. Co-design Session — Based on our interview with the participant, we mapped out the possible problem spaces and ideated solutions with the participant to address the shortcomings of her device and its applications for her needs. We created low-fidelity prototypes over the course of the session.
3. User Test — Based on the lo-fi prototypes, we generated high-fidelity prototypes that we eventually tested with our participant using a Wizard of Oz technique.
While our participant talked a lot about the issues she faces with her phone, there were two that really stood out to us:• A guide to tell me what my phone can do, and how to do it: “I don’t even know what I can get out of the phone. And it would be wonderful to know. It would be nice to find somebody that would be able to show me how to do it or get a write-up and I can follow instructions at written instructions. And I think that probably a lot of people could follow.”• Communicating with loved ones who have technological barriers: “We call like maybe once or twice a week, but a lot of times she can’t hear the phone and she used to have text-ability, but her son decided that since she couldn’t see, so that would be great if she could text if there was some way in spite of she has macular degeneration, the kind that you can’t get the shots for.”
We decided to redesign the calling experience for our participant in a way that would be suitable for communicating with her sister. This not only gave us insights into how existing experiences didn’t cater to our participant’s needs with calling her sister but also taught us about the other side of the technology-savvy spectrum when we look at older adults; Those who are interested in learning but lack the resources to do so. Following our interview, we collected a few insights that could better inform our design direction.
Our participant seemed most interested in finding a solution for being able to communicate with her sister, who lives farther away. For the past 10 years, her sister has been witnessing a decline in her hearing abilities and has been diagnosed with macular degeneration, which makes it difficult for her to notice the phone ringing. Apart from her sister’s requirements, she has also mentioned concerns about not being able to connect with calls through notifications, trouble adding other members to calls, and about requiring everything to be bigger.
With this in mind, we decided that the objective of our project should be to redesign the entire experience of calling, which could be personalized and reflected in the phone of the person she is calling.
We would like to address aspects, such as adding other members and favorite contacts amongst others, that aren’t accessible to her in the way her current phoning application is designed.
Goal for the session:
• To understand whether a specially designed calling app would help the Participant communicate with her sister (and other family or friends) that she would like to reach.
• What would be the features for the alternative calling app and how would it be different from the pre-existing calling app on her phone?
Method
For the co-design session, the primary method we followed was Likes/Dislikes and Design Ideas.We started with evaluating the existing calling application on the participant’s phone and categorized the features into ones she liked, disliked and then further went on to brainstorm design ideas.Conducting this activity with the participant helped us narrow down the major requirements of a calling application, on basis of which, we created rough paper prototypes that helped the participant put her thoughts into a more tangible format.
Creating a rough storyboard helped us ensure we were considering every major step of the calling process:
locating a contact → placing/receiving a call → ongoing call screen
Our primary takeaway from the co-design session was that we needed a way to trigger sensory feedback beyond the conventions of calling applications to be able to create a more seamless method of communication. Some of the additional insights were –
• All of the text & interactions needed to be a lot bigger than the default iOS settings.
• Out of the ~300 contacts on her phone, the participant only calls ~10 of them regularly.
• Our participant likes using messaging applications. However, using text was often an issue due to the text sizes and issues with typing.
• The participant expressed wanting the receiver of a phone call to have some indication that ‘someone special’ was calling them.
• Our participant always accessed communication options through her Contacts application.
• She wasn’t used to clearing her tabs as well, which meant she would open applications from the last viewed screen.
• Current iOS calling experiences, such as this screen for receiving a call, made it difficult for our participant to understand how she could reject the call.
• Within the edit mode of contacts, ‘Cancel’ is confusing nomenclature.
• When in search mode, the ‘+’ icon disappearing threw our participant off.
The outcome of the co-design session was a more solid understanding of the structure of the application and what the major features that do not exist in conventional calling applications would address the major problems faced by the participant.
We ended the session with a rough outline of the application –
A communication application that focuses on favorite contacts. Calling features that trigger sensory feedback such as maximization of volume and flashing lights that make it easier for the receiver of the call to perceive an incoming call. An audio-based messaging application that allows the participant to drop her sister a short message without having to call her up.
From the insights of our co-design session, we created high-fidelity prototypes of our solution. We proposed a communication app exclusively for frequently contacted or ‘favorite’ contacts. Some of the main features are as follows:
Onboarding: The app imports favorite or preferred contacts from the main contact list. The home page provides easy access to frequent contacts.
Messaging: An audio-based messaging feature allowing users to instantly send a message easily. Text messaging is an alternative option.
Calling: A customizable calling feature that provides the option to trigger sensory feedback at the receiver’s end such as maximizing volume, flashing light or increasing vibration.