Robot Rapport

Over the past decade, businesses have begun to recognize the value of incorporating UX design as a key component in the product and services development process. Data strongly suggests that companies focusing on meeting users’ needs perform better than those that remain stuck in earlier generations’ “functionality first” mindset.

The emergence of new technologies (virtual reality, drones, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, etc.) has reinforced the need for UX design to drive development and has revealed a new set of challenges that cannot be solved using the methods of the past. There is an opportunity to approach these challenges with a fresh perspective in order to create a solid foundation that focuses on user experience from the beginning. In order for these new tools and technologies to improve our lives, they must be designed with a knowledge of, and integrated with an appreciation for, people’s needs and cultural expectations.

Roombas, delivery drones, and digital assistants are now relatively common, but we have yet to define the UX “code of conduct” around our interactions with them. For instance, if you encountered a robot moving towards you in a hotel hallway, or entering your elevator, how would you react? How should it react to you?

Savioke is a company that creates autonomous robots for the service industry. Once they achieved the goal of creating a robot that could successfully navigate spaces and execute commands, their main concern was: How should their robots behave around humans?

To answer this question, the Savioke team partnered with Google Ventures to conduct a design sprint to examine the user experience. The Google design sprint is a 5-day collaborative exercise for efficiently answering critical business questions and creating realistic prototypes validated with actual end-users.

Savioke implemented this process one month before providing a local hotel with their Relay robot. As a result, the team was able to update the robot’s software to display human-like characteristics close to the initial release. This included a series of expressive sounds (think R2-D2 and Wallie), a physical interface vaguely resembling a cheerful face, and a “dance” that occurs after a successful delivery.

These may be small features compared to the challenge of building a robot capable of operating autonomously, but the impact of understanding the human element (or ignoring it) is critical to the integration of new technology into our society.

Ready for Launch?

Space exploration is humanity's ultimate design challenge. To start, some fundamental laws of physics must be overcome in order to escape Earth's gravitational pull. Then, a life sustaining environment must be created in the inhospitable vacuum of space. This seemingly impossible goal was achieved during the space race of the 50's and 60's, but rockets designed for sustainable space exploration have only recently seen significant improvement.

Last month, SpaceX successfully launched their Falcon 9 rocket, transporting a commercial, communications satellite into low-earth orbit, and landed the rocket safely on a drone ship. This is one of many missions that will incorporate reusable, self-landing rockets. While the engineers at SpaceX made this miracle of physics look easy, it was a long road of trial, and especially error (two and a half years and three consecutive failed launches), that ultimately lead to the company's success.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has compared the challenge of building a rocket to his experience in software engineering:

"The best analogy for rocket engineering is if you wanted to create a really complicated bit of software. You can't run the software as an integrated whole, you can't run it on the computer it's intended to run on, but the first time you put it all together and run it on that computer it must run with no bugs."

This leads to an interesting comparison to the UX Design work that I do. While designing a software application may not be as daunting a task as building a rocket (or even coding a software application), there are still challenges that cause projects to fall short of perfection. 

Functionality-Centered Design Challenge

Many of us are familiar with typical business software that attempts to improve efficiency, but ultimately produces a tangled knot of functionality. This reoccurring pattern stems from the impulse to simply gather all the necessary functionality in one place, hoping a positive user experience will emerge once it is rolled out. The resulting user experience is one that is function-centric rather than user-centric, and typically results in an unintuitive “toolbox”. As a result, companies end up wasting time and money on training as users are forced to adapt to a poorly designed application.

People are expected to adapt because they have no other choice. On the other hand, rockets don’t adapt to poor design – they explode. Rockets are treated with respect. People are treated with contempt – if they are considered at all.

Design Solution

The design process we follow identifies the needs of the user population and uses this information to guide the decisions necessary to craft useful and usable applications. When a design challenge is approached from a focus on these fundamentals, an organic solution emerges that coordinates functional requirements with user needs. The result is an application that is pre-adapted to meet the needs of those that will use it.

The success of business software product launches is determined by metrics like user adoption and productivity. When a launch fails, companies typically rely on training and managerial mandates to bridge the gap between user needs and software design. When designing for a launch that ultimately has to overcome the force of gravity, no gaps can be left. Hard science reveals a rigid set of nonnegotiable requirements that must be met 100% of the time in order for the product to be considered “successful”.

This is a lesson the software industry needs to take to heart. As a species, we are all designing a small piece of the future, and like the space industry, we should strive for perfection. While it’s true that we are not usually tackling projects of interstellar magnitude or dealing with requirements fixed like laws of nature, we cannot rely on users to make up for shortcomings in our designs. Sure, we can take comfort in the fact that our projects are unlikely to literally crash and burn on live television, but that’s a small comfort when millions are spent on software that no one wants to use.

Hearing Your Experience

One of the first things that comes to mind when you hear the term “user experience” is a whiteboard littered with wireframe sketches. The design of mobile applications and websites has become the face of the user experience industry, but not all of the content we consume can be found on a screen. The rising popularity of audio content in the form of podcasts and audiobooks allows us to think about the user’s experience from a different angle. Designing what a person hears compared to what they see poses the question: Do people judge audio content by the same standards that apply to screen design?

An hour commute to work provides me the opportunity to listen to podcasts on a regular basis. Over months and months of listening I’ve gravitated towards my favorites because they consistently provide entertaining content. Whether its news, talk radio, or comedy, the same standards that I hold for websites and apps apply: if the content is not easily accessible, useful, or entertaining, I will most likely look for a better option. 

But engaging users with audio alone can be difficult. Because the content is being listened to rather than looked at, the user is forced to relinquish control and allow the information to be presented in a predetermined, linear fashion. This puts additional pressure on a podcast’s ability to hold the user’s attention, because if the conversation dies or the storyline becomes too difficult to follow, the listener will question their choice and look for something else. This is not the case with a website, because the user determines the rate at which information is processed and is supported by a navigation system that provides a sense of structure and orientation. The user can casually browse through various pages or click straight to the thing they’re looking for. In the case of audio, the user is forced to evaluate the content second by second, at a pre-determined speed without the ability to control the interaction. The only choice afforded the listener is to turn it off or skip ahead in the hope it will improve.

Recently, a co-worker and I began producing a podcast that focuses on company culture, during which we interview employees about their work experience and personal lives. This involves recording interviews, editing audio files, and distributing the final product to employees. In the process of editing these episodes, I realized that I was using the same methods I had applied during more traditional UX consulting projects. In considering the listener’s point of view, I found myself validating editing decisions by asking: Who is this for? What is their purpose for using it? What is the best way to meet their needs? While the modality and the rate at which the user consumes information is different, the process of designing a great listening experience is not so different from designing a great visual experience (though captivating users without relying on visuals can be challenging). As UX Designers, our job and our process remains unchanged. We elicit user requirements, even the ones they can’t express, coordinate these with business requirements and technical constraints, and create enjoyable, intuitive experiences.

UXify Animating Name Badges

In case you missed out on UXify 2015 last month, check out the recent Infragistics blog UXify North America – Conference Videos for all 8 presentations covering “The Future of UX Design”.

In addition to an afternoon of free lectures, conference goers also received interactive animating name badges. At first glance, the name badge appears to be the attendee’s name printed on a card along with an abstract design. But with the addition of a second transparent card overlaying the image, the design comes to life.

The name badge uses a method of animation known as “scanimation”. A six frame animation is combined into a single abstract image. By moving a striped acetate overlay across the image, the viewer is only able to see one frame at a time. As the frames are quickly strung together, the once static image creates the illusion of movement.

Try the animation for yourself using this interactive prototype:http://indigodesigned.com/share/7qn4datqwwqu

Interested in sharing your own prototypes? Check out the all new platform for sharing Indigo Studio prototypes: IndigoDesigned.com