Design Lead
UX researcher
High fidelity screens
Prototype video
Sketch
Abstract
Zeplin
Flinto
Google Docs
Pen and paper
This mobile AR app takes social sharing to the next level by giving users the ability to share and discover digital notes as well as multimedia content in a physical space. Check out the product site here.
Challenge
The goal of this project was to help people connect, share and have fun using the latest AR technology. Creating a delightful user experience while showcasing use cases of persistent AR to investors were our driving goals. Due to tight project deadlines and deliverables, I worked closely with the CEO, another designer and a design-build team abroad to deliver a user-centric product that was still in line with the investor pitch.
Approach
I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to lead the design team for this project. After being briefed on business goals and CEO's objectives I jumped straight into user research. Extensive user testing, followed by design iterations, became the integral core of this project. My team was committed to developing a fun and engaging product that would appeal to users and lead to user growth through in-app and word of mouth sharing. Through a series of user tests, I came up with several user journeys and incorporated new features such as discovery and content filtering.
For this project I led a team of designers to create a positive note sharing experience. I focused on several user flows including onboarding and registration, note placement and note discovery.
My individual tasks included:
Sneek peek of the prototype video shown to investors
WHO'S OUR USER? 🙋
Our target users, identified by the project owner, were college students. Our goal was to make the app appealing to that demographic and their specific needs. Knowing who my target users were, gave me the opportunity to develop a proto-persona to guide in user journeys and further the design process. Additional user testing confirmed that users in their late teens and early 20's would be the best target audience for our mobile AR app.
Once I confirmed that my proto-persona aligned with the CEO's vision for a target user group, I went straight to the user to test existing beta that was previously developed by the engineering team. As the technology of persistent AR was still being worked on, my goal for the initial user testing was to get the first impression to Social AR sharing and learn which features users would value most.
For the first round of testing, I selected 5 tech savy users in their early 20s to observe how they interacted with the product. Users responded favorably to the idea of social AR note sharing which was a great green light for our team.
Throughout the design process, I tested 4 additional groups of users following JTBD interview techniques, observing, and letting the user tell me their thoughts without asking direct or leading questions.
Ideation 🤔
Wireframing and lo-fi ideations gave me the opportunity to work through my ideas and send them off quickly to an engineering team in Uruguay. While their in-house designer took a first pass on the hi-fi design, I focused on brainstorming additional features, resolving user issues in the existing beta and performed a competitive analysis of other social sharing apps.
Version 1 (V1) Validation
Once the first phase of design was finished in Uruguay, I began validating it with our target user group in San Francisco. User validation uncovered a few pain points that needed to be addressed.
Onboarding
The V1 design incorporated an AR view with a short tutorial. Unfortunately, it was also rife with pain points. Users did not find the tutorial useful and could not understand what the app does while going through onboarding. In addition, incorporating AR into the onboarding required users to give our app permission to access the camera and location, which users did not feel comfortable doing before learning more about the product.
sign-up/sign-in options
Users seemed unhappy with the lack of sign-up/ sign-in options in the V1 design and expressed wanting to use other social media, their email or phone number to sign in or to create an account.
Anchor scanning
Scanning an anchor object prior to placing a note or discovering a note is important for the technology to work correctly. However, users did not read the instructions in the V1 design and continued to scan objects that could be easily moved such as cups or chairs.
Home page and discovery
Users were confused on how to navigate the app in the V1 design. The discovery feature that users are familiar with in other social sharing apps was not yet implemented and became a priority to add. In the new iteration, we added additional navigation options to the home screen. I also created a discovery feed with note categories and filtering options to give users control of which notes they want to see.
Note options
When we tested the V1 design, users had a blast posting and reading notes left in their space. However, they had difficulty finding out who the note was left by. This prompted me to add a few personal touches in the next design itiration.
Validation
Learnings
With AR being one of my passions, I found this project incredibly exciting and rewarding. Due to AR technology being so new, there are still many design constraints and challenges such as anchor scanning that we did not completely resolve. Understanding these constraints and working with them is essential to crafting a delightful experience for our users.
Our original hypothesis was that users would need a tutorial on how to use AR, so a lengthy onboarding flow was designed to accommodate it. However, users found AR features and note placement to be intuitive and did not enjoy going through the extra steps. This reaffirmed the importance of testing the design early in the process.
Working with an international team and a CEO who not only understood and appreciated the value of good design, but also facilitated great communication, were key to the overall success of the project. The final product was received well by the investors and was something I was proud to work on.
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