Situation

I needed to test the validity of my initial hypothesis for the app setup experience; a task flow I designed to consolidate app setup tasks with corresponding prompts that would encourage the user to complete these tasks. By conducting a usability study, I would be able to gauge the effectiveness of the task flows overall, and gain an understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and most importantly, what can be improved in the next iteration of design. 

Overview

The app setup flow was designed to help users complete app setup with the addition of prompts and a user flow dedicated to app activation.

Projected Impact 

· Higher rates of completion of app setup related tasks

·  Increased user engagement

Metrics for success

· User demonstrates the ability to easily complete the tasks

· User demonstrates an understanding of the content, and CTAs

· User demonstrates an intuitive understanding of the interactions in the flow

Audience

· Users who are in the age range of our target demographic (senior citizens)

·  Users who demonstrate a certain degree of tech savviness

Usability test questions

 · You would like to start with pairing your Lively wearable device. How do you think you might connect your Lively wearable to your app?

· You would like to sync your account with your caregiver who will use Lively’s companion app Link to keep tabs on you. In order to this you need to send an invitation to this user, how do you think you would go about doing that?

· You don’t really want to configure your app at the moment, how do you think you would hold off on completing these tasks and continue to explore the app?

Now that you’ve explored the app a little bit and gotten familiarized with it, you decide that you want to finish setting up your app. How do you think you would continue setting up your app?

Usability Study & Synthesis

 With the assistance of some research partners, I was able to launch an unmoderated usability study was conducted to test the underlying hypotheses of the “App Setup Flow”. By

conducting an unmoderated usability study we aimed to understand

if the task flows were usable, accessible, intuitive, and learnable to the

test participants (14 total). The participants represented the Gen A

demographic who are age 70+ (7 participants), and Caregivers

(7 participants). With the assistance of research partners, I was able to synthesize the data and extract a few key insights.

Task 2

Insight: Average time on task for users was

52 seconds. This seems long

compared to other tasks

 Recommendation: Explore ways to reduce time on task in

next design iteration, improvements

should focus on making the messaging

and informational hierarchy more

understandable.

Personal Learnings

This being my first ever usability study, I wound up getting a lot of things wrong but not the things I expected. For instance, when setting up usability study in “UserZoom” (a user testing application) I didn’t enable the video function, so there was no video output from the study. So we had to lean more on the other output from the study to glean insight from, and formulate recommendations. Overall this was a huge venture out of my comfort zone, but I learned a lot about conducting research and collaborating with researchers to conduct synthesis.

Objective

To test the validity and the underlying hypotheses of the “App Setup Flow”. By conducting a usability study, we can gain insight into the quality of the experience. This is to ensure that the feature is usable, accessible, intuitive, and learnable to the test participants before committing development resources to build it.

Hypothesis

The addition of this user flow, which consolidated app setup tasks in addition to providing the user with a set of prompts meant to motivate the user configure their app. Users will be more likely to finish configuring their app.

Insight goals

· To understand if the CTA’s clear and understandable, and if they aren’t why?

·  To Understand the interactions intuitive and usable, and if not why?

·  To understand if all the necessary interactions are present for the user to complete the tasks

·   To gauge task the completion rate

Background

Lively is a service that helps elderly users make a call to a customer support agent to receive emergency aid through the Lively app, it also enables caregivers to track the activity and location of the Lively app user through its companion app Link.

Scenario

You recently purchased a subscription to the Lively App. You follow the prompts to start configuring your app. You’ve successfully verified your account, and are ready to start using the app. You are now being prompted to complete your app setup tasks.

Follow up questions

 · Can you gauge how well you were able to understand the tasks?

·  Can you gauge how well you were able to complete this set of tasks?

·  Can you recall any aspect of the experience being unclear or confusing to you?

·   Do you have any insights or comments you would like to add?

Task 1

 Insight: Users reported not having enough

context to understand the task.

Recommendation: Provide enough context to

participants about the activities that

occur off screen (pairing a device).

Make sure participants understand

the prompt and scenario.

Task 3

Insight: users may have spent longer on this task because the language used in the CTA was not direct enough.

Recommendation: Make copy changes that better inform that actions we would like the user to take to complete this task.