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Purpose: Academic Project
Goal: Product Design of a mobile application which enables neighbours to engage in item sharing to promote a sense of community in condo living
Time: 4 months
Role: project manager, user researcher, creative director and UI/UX designer
Tools: Figma, pen & paper, sticky notes, AB testing, R statistical packages
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"Double Diamond" design process
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Understand problem based on expected user needs:
Establish requirements
Design Alternatives
Evaluate proposed solution
- Field Study
- Contextual Inquiry
- User Stories
- Medium fidelity prototypes
-A/B Testing
Who
iNeedA is designed for condo residents to engage in sharing of household items. Residents of a specific apartment building can interact with the application as either a borrower, lender, or both. The inventory of shareable household items provides a platform for neighbors to connect with one another, thus fostering a sense of community within condominium residences.
Why
Contextual inquiry on apartment residents revealed a handful of critical findings related to condo living. We learned that:
a) Condo residents are likely to engage in borrowing and lending of household items with their neighbors
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b) Borrowing and lending tendencies are heavily influenced by convenience and proximity
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c) Individuals would be more inclined to ask to borrow a household item if they were certain it was available
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d) Condo residents aren’t interested in direct benefit from lending, instead they lend household items as a way to foster social connection which they feel they lack with their neighbors
These findings indicate that an interface with a library of household items (for users to view available items) could benefit condo residents, as it could provide these residents with the convenience of being able to borrow items they do not own. Additionally, it could promote connection between neighbors and help develop meaningful relationships.
01 Med - fi prototype of "Static categories" interface version
What
iNeedA is a mobile application with a user-developed household item library. Users upload photos of kitchen gadgets, cleaning equipment, building tools, etc. that they'd like to share with their neighbors. Users can search for specific items by search bar (see above) or by category (see below).
March 6, 2020
We are currently running AB testing on two different interface types. The first interface implements static categories for users to navigate to find household items. The second interface consists of Netflix-type "smart" categories which dynamically adapt to the users interaction with the app. These categories are customized based on user's recent borrows, the floor the user lives on, most popular items in the user's community, and based on the user's search prompts.
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Check back in to see which interface the experiments reveal to elicit most efficient borrowing for users.
April 4, 2020
Users were asked to complete three tasks with two trials on each interface (static and dynamic). Each task involved finding an item, viewing the item, requesting to borrow it, then once they had received the notification that the request was approved, they messaged the lender to coordinate an exchange. We used a 2 x 3 within subject design (i.e. 2 interfaces x 3 tasks). We counterbalanced the order in which the interfaces and tasks were seen.
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With respect to users’ performance time on the experimental tasks, we made some surprising findings. We hypothesized that users would execute tasks faster on the Dynamic interface. By implementing a “smart” interface whose categories adapt to the user and their behaviour, we expected that navigating the categories in the Dynamic interface would be more intuitive than the Static interface. Our ANOVA revealed a main effect of interface for the tasks; however it was the Static interface that enabled users to perform quicker. In comparing error rates across the two interface types on these tasks we found that the difference was not significant.
02 Med - fi prototype of "Static categories" interface version
April 18, 2020
Upon assessing participants’ preferences for interface on each task, we discovered that users felt that the Static interface better supported searching and browsing for household items. Nearly all participants showed preference for the Static interface. This might be attributed to the way users favour efficiency over functionality. While the Dynamic interface provides an interactive and personalized searching experience, quicker category navigation as provided by the Static interface might be the priority for participants for this type of task.
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Based on users' performance times and preference for one design alternative over the other we opted to pursue further design of the Static interface.
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JOIN A CONDO "COMMUNITY" WHICH IS SET-UP AND REGULATED BY BUILDING MANAGER
SEARCH INVENTORY BY KEYWORD
SEARCH INVENTORY BY CATEGORY
EDIT PROFILE AND MANAGE UPLOADED ITEMS
SEARCH RESULTS
SEE FULL DESCRIPTION OF ITEM
SORT RESULTS BY PROXIMITY, POPULARITY, LENDER, etc.
GET NOTIFIED OF BORROWING REQUESTS AND REQUEST APPROVALS
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CONNECT WITH LENDER AFTER APPROVAL
MANAGE NOTIFICATIONS
CLOSE NOTIFICATION
START CHAT WITH LENDER
SEE MESSAGES AND MANAGE CONVERSATIONS
INVENTORY OF SHAREABLE ITEMS AS DEVELOPED BY CONDO RESIDENTS
USERS COLLECT BADGES BASED ON THEIR SHARING BEHAVIOUR
How
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We identified various task examples and user stories associated with our proposed interface
Example:
Sarah is a young graphic designer that works remotely from home. She has recently moved into a 3-bedroom apartment with roommates. Her apartment is on the 23rd floor of a downtown condo. During the transition into her new apartment she often realizes there are tools and household items she is missing. For example, she needs a power drill to install shelves, a hammer to put up her pictures, and a corkscrew to open the bottle of wine she was given as a housewarming gift. Sarah would like to borrow these tools from someone who lives nearby, because it’s more convenient than having to commute to Home Depot. She’s considered asking other residents in the building whether she could borrow their tools but she feels uncomfortable knocking on her next door neighbors door because she hasn’t met them yet. Additionally, she thinks it would be awkward to ask for a household item, and find out the neighbors don’t even own it.
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We conducted task analysis on similar interfaces, and identified stakeholder problems that hadn't been resolved by these existing interfaces
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We established focal points and ran a field study involving contextual inquiry in order to address these focal points:
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What kind of household items are currently borrowed and/or lent within condo communities?
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What kind of household items do condo residents wish they could borrow?
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When do people choose borrowing household items over acquiring them by other means?
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What kind of incentive is adequate in encouraging condo residents to share their household items?
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How do residents communicate with their neighbors?
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How satisfied are residents with their connection to their neighbors?
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Do people have varying levels of willingness towards different neighbors when it comes to lending items?
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We proposed four different design alternatives which would provide solutions to the issues identified in our field study
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In our next iteration, we modified the design alternatives in order to produce two comparable interfaces on which we could run A/B testing
Static Interface
Dynamic "smart" Interface
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We developed personas and experimental tasks in order to provide context to our usability study
Persona: “Imagine you live on the 7th floor of a highrise condo. You don’t know many of your neighbours but have met your next door neighbour Nathan once or twice in the elevator.”
Task: “without using the search bar find and arrange to borrow a spatula from someone on your floor.”
We conducted our usability study (think-aloud observation and questionnaire) on ten participants
We analyzed the data obtained from our usability studies and identified some key findings as illustrated in the figures below
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Figure 1. The effect of Task on user’s performance time on two interface types. Performance time (seconds) is reported as mean + 95% confidence intervals. Significant difference is found between the Static and Dynamic interface at α = 0.05.
Figure 2. The effect of Task on user’s error rate on two interface types. Mean number of errors is reported. No significant difference is found between the Static and Dynamic interface, or between tasks at α = 0.05.
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Qualitative Data Analysis - Affinity Diagram
Conclusions
The static interface received much more favourable feedback than the Dynamic interface. Across both the category browsing tasks (tasks 1 and 3) and the search bar task (task 2), participants showed preference for the Static interface. While this interface implemented no interactivity or personalization, its simplicity likely better supported the experimental tasks. This gives us insight into the users’ priorities when using inventory-based interfaces. That is, users choose simplicity and ease of use over a personalized browsing experience. This data may be related to Hick’s Law, as the Dynamic interface provides too much stimulus (search suggestion, colour images, category names, lender names and floor). The overwhelming stimulus makes it difficult for users to interface and decide the correct workflow.
Moving Forward
The next steps for this iterative design project might involve implementing workflows for lenders, i.e. allowing them to manage their household items and keep track of requests. Additionally, to promote a sense of community in condo living, a news feed or bulletin board could be added to our interface.
Team
Ella Wilson, Li Ze Choo, Saar Kimhi, Kavana Ramesh, Courtney Young