This website is being coded by me 😁 with all my 💖 Therefore, some viewports (mobile and tablets) display a few things in a anti-design way 😂 😅
This was a design challenge I was given to apply to a UX design position in September 2018. Therefore, this was a solo ride that included: user research, early concepts, wireframing, prototyping, user testing, and iteration.
Screenshot of the pdf with the prompt
please keep in my that the number of participants is low due to the task being time sensitive
I started this challenge with the following question: is an app really the solution? Of course, I would have ended up designing the app because it was a challenge for a job position, but true user experience design should always start with the question: what does the user wants? What does the user needs? I believe just because things can be built, this does not mean they should if you do not have the right reasons to do so. If users are not going to use your product or do not needed, why build it in the first place?
After narrowing down the problem, and choosing the domain. conducted a diary study, and gave the participants the freedom to choose the best medium to log their entries (This way I could accomplish two goals in one task: ux research for the app and to confirm the need for a diary study app or to suggest a different approach). Therefore, I told the participants they could use a piece of paper and send a picture of their write-up, text message or any other form they seemed appropriate for the study or convenient for them. I intentionally did not set up boundaries to see what they come up with. I will expand on this later on.
Based on previous experiences, I learned that the best way to tackle this type of challenges is to set the rules clearly and be specify about the domain, so that I do not end up going down the rabbit hole and wasting precious time. There are several ways to approach the prompt: one is to come up with a tool that can be used for any diary study (keeping it generic), which means a CMS for the researcher needs to be added. Another approach is to choose a specific domain/use case. I decided to go with the second option in order to get participants to respond to my diary study more easily. I selected a topic anyone can relate to: food. After all everybody needs to eat, right? Around eating we developed habits and diary studies are great for uncovering this data. I decided to go with a diary study app for a food preparation company.
A food prep service company would like to enhance their meal plans by accommodating people with special diets (due to allergies, medical conditions, and personal preferences), that might become in potential customers. The company wants to understand/know more about their diet habits to determine possible expansion.
A user researcher needs to identify the needs and motivations of food preferences of potential customers . In doing so, they/she/he need/s to gather the following information:
I recruited 3 participants and asked them to record what they eat in a day (a minimum of two entries was requested). To recruit the participants I asked several people beforehand if they have any special diet. This was done remotely.
Please record what you eat during a day. A minimum of two entries is required, one meal is one entry. You can record/send me the entries in any medium you want (text messages, pictures of write-ups, emails, etc.) If you choose to write things down on a piece of paper all you need is to send me a picture of it. If possible, please take pictures of the meals you have.
The reason I left the prompt open-ended was to find out what were participants preferred mediums. I wanted to see if there was a strong preference for write-ups or not. How they would respond to it: whether they would do something unexpected. By giving participants a lot of room of interpretation it allowed me to identify key features the app should have.
Also, I needed to know how far participants would go doing this unpaid activity (they were all working professionals with busy schedules). My assumption was: if busy people can do it without getting paid, paid participants in a real study can do the same and even go a little further with the tasks and extra app features if useful for the study.
Nyah took some time to create a word file and add some pictures to it.
All of them compiled their entries and reported all at once with text/email. Two of them choose text messages.
1
“Lunch: I have a salad” is not really enough information, but if a picture would have come along with this comment, it would be a significant entry. From a picture a researcher might infer whether the salad was bought or homemade, inconstancies, patterns, preferences, etc. Pictures or even short videos provide rich information in this particular use case and compensate the rush of some participants to make an entry. Also, one participant did provide pictures even when this activity was unpaid which also suggests that paid participants can do it too.
2
Although how insightful for a researcher a diary study is, this types of studies disrupt participants lives, and often the entries might be seen as an interruption or extra work (one participant procrastinated the task until the next day). That is why diary studies typically last no more than one month and are compensated. This means that the way users provide feedback has to be quick so they can move on with their lives easily. This is translated into few steps/screens. This was evident with the “Lunch: I have a salad” response.
3
ALL of the participants sent their answers at once, suggesting they wanted to get the task at hand done right away with very few interruptions . That implies that the number of entries has to be limited somehow. I am assuming that the researcher with a minimum of 2 entries and a maximum of 3, will have enough information, so I gave the users to option to enter just the main meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the design part of this challenge.
4
No edits after submitting an entry If users is provided with the option of editing after making an entry, they might start overthinking what is being said or shown and unintentionally, they might "curate" the information altering the raw data. Especially after seeing one participant describing even the ounces of food eaten which suggest a very detail oriented person. This is also aligned with the previous idea about making entries fast and easy.
5
Since all of the participants typed their answers, and 2 out 3 did it in detail, this builds a strong case to support a feature where participants can type longer responses and supply additional information/context.
Types of diary
The elicitation diary uses media (pictures/videos) recorded by participants and later are discussed in a post-interview section. The feedback diary consists of predefined questions that users need to answer at a certain given time.
Ways of sending entries
There are two ways in which the user can send the information: right away or filling out small snippets and come back later and refine the write-up. Because of all the discussion above I did not use the small snippets option.
What I chose
Since pictures might help to clarify poor feedback and give significant information right away as discussed above, and based on the goals of the study, I thought the best way to go was with elicitation diaries, and right away feedback.
Sydney just got graduated from her M.S. in Computer Science and just moved to Chicago, and now it is working as software developer for a company that offers cloud computing services for enterprises. She does not have enough time to cook as she wishes. She has been experiencing some digestive issues, and it is getting difficult to find food on the go due to her new health concerns. She will be participating in a food habit study for a meal preparation service in order to get customized food delivered to her.
I started sketching different ways to accomplish the proposed features and iterated based on user feedback (I performed a series of usability testing with 3 participants). All the screens were designed taking into account Android OS controls and Google’s design materials . However, for testing purposes since I could not find Android users, I tested them with Apple users. I know this is not the right thing to do, but keep in mind the time frame given. I used paper prototypes and the app POP to test them. The picture on the right was taken during one of the tests.
The sign up
It has all the standard information gathered during this part of the process. I particularly included in the sign up the phone number because one of the possible alerts that users can choose is text messages, in doing so, a phone number must be registered.
Onboarding experience
During the usability testing, I evaluated a way to lead users to set up the alerts and times of the days by using notifications displayed on the app, but the experiment failed. Two of the participants wanted to finish up the task given quickly that they completely ignored the notification. To confirm they saw it, I asked them directly about it. Both claimed they saw the bell, but they consciously decided that sending feedback was more important. Considering that setting the alerts and times are an important part of diary studies, I opted to add an onboarding experience. The onboarding experience will guide users step by step to choose the type of alert and different times of the day they want to be notified to create a diary entry. If later, they change their mind about the choices made, there is a likelihood they would remember they have set up them before, and will realize that it might be a way to change them if needed.
Type of alerts
The standard alerts used are emails, text messages, and push notifications. However, for this particular use case time is a crucial part of the process, and emails are a slow way to notify someone about something that needs an immediate response. That is why I went with text messages, push notifications and decided to include an alarm option, because all three give the feeling of urgency that an action has to be executed. This is an unusual way to use push notifications (typically they are sent by the app publisher in a time chosen by the publisher and not by the user), but push notifications provide a great advantage as well as alarms: they both guide the participant to the app to perform an action.
Times
I found no reason to change something users are accustom to, therefore, I decided to stick to a familiar look and feel, and this particular screen ended up being very similar to the Android alarm clock.
Making an entry
During the usability testing, I noticed that participants either add a picture or a comment when the picture and description boxes are together in the same interface, but never both Someone even asked: “are they both mandatory?” Referring to the picture and comment features. Therefore, for the final design, I split it into different screens, meaning that in order to move on with the process a picture/video needs to be added enabling the NEXT button. In addition, if participants cannot make an entry while eating they have the option to upload a picture from their personal files whenever they have the time to register an entry.
Adjusting settings and additional options
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS:
Diary study cover - Hannah Olinger (Unsplash.com)
Salad plate - Brook Lark (Unsplash.com)
Persona - Victoria Heath (Unsplash.com)
Capturing a food picture with a cellphone - Dan Gold (Unsplash.com)