eVisit On a Mobile Device >
Usability Studies
For this set of Usability Interviews, I’ll walk you through the steps I took to run the Product Discovery Research for a new product, called “eVisit” that allows patients to receive a diagnosis and prescriptions from their phone.
After experimenting with different formats, tools, and processes from Ideo, Google Venture, Stanford’s D. School, Cluster, Indi Young with her non-directed interviews, and many others, I have chosen a combination of different techniques that best fit the project, the team, the budget and the time-constraints I’m working on.
STEP 1. Understand
Step one is probably the most important one for me; this is when I invite the team, and the stakeholders to share their knowledge about the problem we’re trying to solve. Through a series of team interviews, lightning demos, and a mind-map exercise we define the scope for the test and come up with a list of assumptions that will guide us trough the process.
Scope of the test: To test a getting-started experience on a mobile device with people who registered for the pilot version of “eVisit”.
A screen of the Wiki page with info, ideas, and progress:
STEP 2. Sketching & Prototyping
At this point I start getting ideas down on paper—sometimes this step is done with the team, other times, I complete a first draft, then pair with the team to review my sketches and discuss details. When I finalize the storyboard, we present it to the stakeholders, and I’m ready to create the prototype.
Few screens of the final storyboard–Keynote:
Few icons for the tab-bar–Illustrator:
STEP 3. Select & Schedule Participants
To recruit people we need to create a recruiting screener. First I start with a List of the characteristics for the people we want to interview, and from there we figure out the precise criteria to identify those people. After we’ve written questions for all of our criteria, we create the screener questionnaire.
A [ link ] to the screener–Typeform:
I find this tool very easy to set up, and the responses go right into a spreadsheet that I can export, sort and filter.
STEP 4. Interview Guide & Presentation
Now it’s time to plan exactly what to do during the interviews. For this study we have planned for 4-to-6 one hour interviews. We start with an introduction, followed by context questions—to learn about their experiences and current behavior with mobile devices—we continue with a couple of tasks: the first to help us identify the new iconography for “eVisit”, and the second to walk us through the prototype using a real-life scenario. Then we move through the Follow Up Questions, the Debrief, and the De-Greet phases.
A template for the Context Questions–Illustrator:
A picture of the playing cards for the icons exercise:
STEP 5. Usability Room
The challenge here is that we do not have a Lab and everything needs to be done from scratch. Fortunately the technology has made great steps forward and today setting up the space with test devices and recording system is no longer an expensive task.
For this test we decide to use a long spacy room with sunny windows on the front and walls on the back. The participant will be facing the windows while the team seats behind her and observes what she does from a large monitor that is used as a separator between the two areas. This configuration allows the participant to block out anyone who is not part of the interview process and allows the team to participate face-to-face in the final Debrief with the participant.
I make every effort to make sure that anyone who participated in the sprint can witness the experience first hand and does it knowing what to expect.
For the test devices we use two devices: an iPhone 5S with the prototype of the app, and a mini iPad pre-logged into the live screens of the eVisit product–this step requires an observer to sign into the product while the participant is navigating through the prototype, so that she can switch from one to the other almost seamlessly. Both devices are connected via AirServer to my laptop that is mirroring the desktop to the larger monitor–for the observer. To record the device screens, the person using the device, and the entire session, we use Camtasia with the built-in camera on my laptop.
Few clips from the recordings:
STEP 6. Validate & Summarize
On the day of the inetrview everyone in the room has a specific role (greeter, interviewer, scribe, and observer). We all take notes and at the end of the interview we share observations and start preparing for the next interview. The day after, we meet everyone who has attended a session. Individually then collectively, we fill the posters that showcase our initial hypothesis with our comments, notes, and observations. With this knowledge I put together a summary report on Wiki, with all the notes, material, videos, and observations that I have gathered.
In addition I create an infographic to hang on the walls of our common area to spread the findings across the department.
A screen of the Wiki page with the results:
An infographic of the results–Illustrator:
