UX Case Study: The friend of new millennium!
I designed an AI based Chatbot app called Ziel: A friend we all need!
Where It all began!
I was taking a look at the upcoming technologies and the apps made to get inspiration for my project, I came across this concept of chatbot as a friend and it immediately made me curious to know more..
I decided to dig deep into it and started doing some fundamental research on it as this concept was new I could see I had so much to explore!
After passing a few stepping stones…
When I started to speak to my users in depth about this and bingo I could get their attention and excitement and I could gauge scope of discovery.
So, Ziel came into existence and I designed this app with experience design in focus which can be your friend (a non-judgmental & neutral entity) because everyone needs an emotional support, a social anchor who can be your go-to buddy for expressing your thoughts, venting frustrations unapologetically. This gap can help the business to open a whole new avenue for people to socialize.
I have played the role of an experience designer spreading my wings through the 5 stages of Design thinking process: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test
- I conducted User Research, analyzed and Identified pain points.
- I generated ideas through Ideation techniques
- I prepared low fidelity and High Fidelity mockups
- I conducted usability tests
Empathize with the users: Putting on the researcher’s hat keeping aside the designer in me…
Alert! No mistakes on learning! I got swayed with emotions that momentarily I forgot the original intention.. Because sympathy and pity with users only lead to assumptions and not their real needs it was important for me to understand this difference.
It is important to Empathize with the users to gain deeper appreciation and understanding of people’s emotional and physical needs. To immerse in their world and see things and interactions through their lens.
Conducting Interviews with Empathy:
I Asked them basic and concrete questions first so that they feel comfortable and confident in answering questions and then asking them questions in depth (what they say vs actually what they mean).
Quantitative Research: Let the numbers speak!
I conducted a survey with a sample size of 138 people.
The Main objective of the survey:
1.To know if people are aware of chat-bot friend concept, If yes which one?
2. Which topics would they be willing to share with their chat bot friend?
3. Will they be willing to accept a digital friend in their lives?
Key Inferences
- As this is a relatively new concept, users are not aware of chat-bot companion i.e., lack knowledge.
- As their Mental Models are not quite developed for this type of chat-bot they are confusing it with Siri and Alexa as they majorly voted for informational support.
- They are willing to spend a few minutes in a day with their virtual friend which suggests they are open to use it.
Qualitative Research: Dig deep to let users tell you which they also never told themselves!
I conducted a detailed User Interview (video call) of 20 users for about 45 mins. Trust me nobody got bored:), There was one user who was so curious that my interview session for about 75 mins.. lucky me!! The researcher in me shined:):)
My flow of the interview was as follows: keep it simple and interesting
After detailed User Interviews, there were certain aspects which were not clear for me to move forward in the project, there were some blind spots which needed to be addressed. So I used a tool called Analysis Question builder.
Define: Its time to address the elephant in the room with no further delay… Detachment is the key
DESIGN CHALLENGE
A person needs a companion who takes out the best in him/her by fully getting the leverage to express, Vent, opinionate without the fear of being judged. It is important for the user to have a go-to buddy (24/7) to weather in lonely times, suggest better lifestyle choices, motivate, and have fun with.
Stakeholder Analysis
I Identified primary and secondary stakeholders of the app:
Persona: Real users representation to keep me on track
Alert! No mistakes only learning! I got overwhelmed with so much data received , utilizing it wisely and come to concrete conclusions was the key. For me this phase was tough as I got so much data and It was getting difficult for me find patterns in all of them and not distracting myself as a designer.
- The next step was to identify personas. The main purpose of doing this was to identify solutions into context of respective needs and user tasks.
- These personas are based on facts from interviews and observations.
- The main aim was to learn more about their pains, gains, and tasks to be fulfilled of persona in context of problem statement.
- In my project, I identified six behavioral personas which are spread across different age groups and different needs.
For detailed personas, please refer the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LEz7quOe0BQ8EQjNT8dm6mD0Eju-oObW/view?usp=sharing
Empathy Map: Mapping what users think, feel, say and did
After the interview, it was time to summarize key findings and enter them in empathy map. Empathy map involves identifying feelings, thoughts and attitudes of potential users and understand their needs. This helped me obtain in depth insights on the potential users.
For detailed empathy maps, please refer the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KPNSdpJbDO17bKLnLjlBrYEf7bcJ-w6-/view?usp=sharing
Journey Maps
The app has certain features of which I have sketched their journeys to understand user’s touchpoints.
The touch points show the points of contact the user has with the product.
This process helped me close problematic points and gaps in the user interaction and realize a unique experience.
For detailed journey maps, please refer the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/16N5-H67SpuqYqiY0wS1UnZUpS45P5RVc/view?usp=sharing
Ideate: Let the creative juices flowing!
Storyboarding
These storyboards depicts user’s experiences with this app also helps to understand the flow of people’s interaction with the app over time.
Information Architecture
This is an essential step to get clarity of the application scope and its execution.
Card Sorting
I performed closed card sorting for this project. The concept of my project is new and users don’t have mental models to actually visualize this so open card sorting could have given misleading results.
I defined the main categories for the users and gave them different cards with specific names and gave them the task to place them into these categories which they feel will match their expectations and will be logical.
It was a crucial feedback as to how the users think should be included and why.
Prototype: Ideas to reality
It was time to bring all the research and ideas to life! Wireframes give this opportunity to layout the ideas realistically.
Alert! No Mistakes only learning! I suddenly got blank at this stage as there was so much going on in my mind that I couldn’t figure out where to start. I thought login screen would be the easiest so I started with it, but trust me it took a lot of time and its then I realized so much goes into designing a screen! phew that was a lot of work but worth the efforts…
First things first: Low-Fidelity
I created low fidelity mockups to check and test the different functionalities of the app.
Test, Test and Test
I conducted evaluation on all the screens based on design principles and noted the changes. I also took user feedback on the low fidelity and incorporated the necessary changes.
Alert! No mistakes only learnings! Its was tiresome process for me as I am a beginner and there were lot of aspects which I was blind sided to due to my limited experience but it turned out to be a great learning phase for me.
For my detailed evaluation on all the screens, please refer the link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AIEAyHy7wT6S8A-hwF0YypbPgOfd_6qM/view?usp=sharing
Style Guide
- Typography: Roboto
- Color Palette:
High-Fidelity: The final run
After completing low fidelity mockups and Testing, there were various changes suggested by the users and evaluation based on design principles.
Those changes were incorporated and I prepared high fidelity mockups to test visual design, content and interactivity.
Conclusion: It’s not the end
This journey started with a design challenge which was formed after user research and need finding. Through the journey of design process led to user interactions at various levels which helped the product stay in line with the user expectations. As many of the users did not have any prior experience using this kind of product, so they started with a blank slate and my journey as a UXR was tested as in the beginning the users did not have any firm expectations and had their reluctance. To take it forward from there and identifying tasks and creating different personas to understand in depth how a particular persona would respond to the feature depending upon their personality, background, and expectations and where and to what extent they can accommodate this app in their lives.
In the prototyping phase, I began to have some firm affirmations of the ideas and task which were on paper came to reality and usability came into the picture which led to make some more changes. The user reactions to this was important as this stage could make or break the research results and conclusions made then. The final prototyping and the user feedback on it was the validation for the design challenge to be solved to a large extent and is in the positive direction.
- The solution provided to the design problem is through an AI based chatbot app called Ziel.
- This app fulfills the void where the users get to vent out their frustrations and share their part of the story.
- The features which were designed for this app includes: My Mood, Record my thoughts, My Activities and My Vision board
- Users get to chat with their friend, call him/her as per their need.
- With this app the users now feel that they can be themselves without the fear of being judged.
- The next step from here would have been to successfully deliver the results of the process to the development team.
- Also, this app is based on AI and this research will be open to changes and improvements suggested in the future.
My Journey as an experience designer will move on to new challenges, until then signing off
