Mastering remote communication

To ensure everyone’s health and safety amidst the pandemic, students and employees are learning and working from home. They are also socializing while isolated. Many issues arise within our personal and professional communication while using various technology platforms to accommodate this new world we find ourselves in.

Scope of Work

In this newfound reality, we set out to discover how we could reinvent, facilitate and master. How might we redesign remote communication within an existing mobile app to improve our experience?

A coalescence of assumptions about the remote experience began guiding our design process to come to a hypothesis.

Our assumptions:

·Users are bored. They need active and emotional engagement with each other.

·Users want to have an archive of communication: shared documents and chat history.

·Users are limiting meeting time and number of people in groups due to restrictions.

Our hypothesis:

Remote users need a single, mobile destination to actively engage with groups (of three or more people) over extended periods of time and archive important documents from their conversations.

Research

Setting out to confirm this hypothesis we began our research process by interviewing 5 users about their remote experiences.

Our interview guide:

·General Overview

·Motivations/Goals

·Learning curves/Mastery

·Frustrations

Afterwards we began the process of distilling the information we had gathered by affinity mapping. In this exercise you begin by containing any unique expression, answer or observation received from the user interview as a single data point. You then redistribute these points into respective common themes. A look below and you will see color coded data points (or squares) denoting the user interviewed.

Affinity Map

Synthesis

The desires, motivations and lifestyle insights proved to be valuable. We found users really wanted a channel to a human on the other end of their screens. Along the same vein, they enjoyed involvement with actual activities and games.

Additionally, people enjoy autonomy when working and don’t appreciate a boss or a teacher looking over their shoulder gauging productivity. They are in essence motivated when trusted to work independently.

This leads us to hectic pace of the current culture we live in. Users played multiple roles within their own lives and looked to technology to help them juggle these moving parts. Often they looked to reach niche or wider audiences and achieve multiple functionalities all in one platform. The speed at which information is disseminated and consumed also proved to be a driving force in mobile app usage.

Our insights:

·Users want human connectivity.

·Users enjoy active participation while engaging with their friends and family.

·Students and employees are motivated to be more productive when they are independent.

·People with a busy lifestyle need easy accessibility to everything and everyone they are dealing with.

·People are incentivized to learn and get information from wherever it’s easy and quick.

Our persona:

Meet Elsie Lingo. She is an archetype formed from the composite of these insights. And the model persona for which we will be designing for.

A working professional who is constantly on the go, Dr. Lingo is an educator, lecturer and writer. Her goals include being able to have one space to be able to upload content and assign tasks to specific people in different spheres of her life. She would like to maintain and distribute documents in an organized way not only for herself but to foster autonomy for those in her professional sphere. Lastly, Elsie always encourages discussion with her editor and more connection with her students and family.

Persona

Revised Problem Statement

The initial hypothesis of engagement (wanting human connection and active participation) and archival (accessibility of related people and parts) was validated. However, a general theme of users operating different activities within one context was prevalent. We wanted to address this nuance.

In order to improve our remote team and personal work experience, how might we improve engagement and archival specific to activity in Microsoft Teams?

Design

The existing Microsoft Teams mobile app has a well developed main chat function. It easily allows multiple chats to be created through contact groups and media. Documents, pictures, events and tasks etc. are uploaded through a drop down text bar, within the chat section itself. In view of it working well and to preserve layout consistency, during our redesign process we kept the chat format the same as the existing Microsoft Teams app.

However the main task function is not as flushed out as its chat counterpart. Tasks can be separated by smaller action items and divided among contact groups. However, overall, the existing task function is hard to navigate once details are input. The display organization also does not relate back to any specific chat discussion relating to the task itself. Nor does it keep relevant uploaded items organized by task. Thus users are forced to go back and scroll through endless chat history to find information they need for the task at hand.

Firstly the task function was brought to the forefront. We wanted it to serve as the structural framework for which sub-chat engagement and sub-chat archival will be separated. While the existing Microsoft Teams main chat function can serve to easily create larger overall rooms to talk, these sub-chats will be designated within a specific task or action. By doing so we hope users will be able to communicate pertinent information to the appropriate people easily and quickly.

Our features:

Insights

·Users want human connectivity.

·Users enjoy active participation while engaging with their friends and family.

Feature Reveal

·Chat functions associated with each larger task

·Ability to add and bookmark virtual live event links within dashboard of each larger task

·Easily able to add contacts to chats within each task or smaller action item

Insights

·People with a busy lifestyle need easy accessibility to everything and everyone they are dealing with.

Feature Reveal

·Easily add documents, pictures, links, and locations through chat functions

·All relevant documents and conversations are categorized within a dashboard of a task or smaller action item

·Personal and shared tasks are separated for easier visibility and access

Insights

·Students and employees are motivated to be more productive when they are independent.

·People are incentivized to learn and get information from wherever it’s easy and quick.

Feature Reveal

·Easy track status bars for tasks and actions on shared work

·Due dates, meetings, virtual live streams and in person events are all easily added through calendar and/or synched through tasks

·All relevant documents and conversations are categorized within each task or smaller action item

Early Ideation

To begin ideation and user testing we drew lo-fidelity wireframes by hand on paper. Rough sketches of screen layouts to illustrate the overall look and flow of the mobile application redesign. These were then turned into clickable prototypes to test on 5 users for usability.

our user testing scenario:

You are an online educator and writer that teaches art history classes. You would like to utilize Microsoft Teams to assign tasks to students, monitor projects and set up live lectures. Maintenance of your personal life, classwork and personal work is key also.

At the beginning of the year, you also like to go live on larger social media platforms to publicize your classes to a larger audience for the future. Students like to help each other out on there. You would like to do the same in a smaller chat setting (with direct access to you) with Microsoft Teams for your paid students. You want the students to be able to actively engage online in chats after each lecture. You would also like for them to be able to access all materials and assignments for the class in an organized way.

our lo-fidelity user testing insights:

· Users need clear wording as a guide.

· Users can’t have competing symbols as guides

· Users are easily tired when completing steps. Need short and repetitive paths.

· Users are quickly adaptive and can complete tasks faster once learning the interface.

Concept Evolution

Our first round of ideation and testing provided key takeaways we were able to use in the next phase of development. We ran into some problems in our quest to find the best path to nestle the chat function within the larger framework of a task.

Our lo-fidelity wireframes had a path such as this:

Personal/Shared/Favorite Task>>All Shared Tasks>>Specific Shared Task>>Subtasks/Dashboard>>Subtask >>Click Chat (click bullet)>>Add Media within chat function

Subtasks had been named Tasks on the lo-fidelity wireframe causing confusion with larger Shared/Personal/Favorite Tasks. This was renamed Actions in the next round to distinguish itself clearly.

Finding the chat function under the Subtask also proved to be difficult for users. Thus we decided to adjust the layout and path in our mid-fidelity wireframe.

Personal/Shared/Favorite Task>>All Shared Tasks>>Specific Shared Task>>Actions>>Click Chat (click talking bubble icon)>>Chat/Dashboard>>Chat>>Add Media

After adjusting our designs we tested another 5 users with the same set of questions.

our user tasks and screen flow:

Task#1: Add your Postwar Abstract Painting Class that meets in the evening on M, W, F from 5–7 pm.

Task #2: Add the Live stream link from Facebook to the first lecture of your Postwar Abstract Painting Class.

Task #3: Add Thesis Part 1 Assignment to your Postwar Abstract Painting class. Then divide your evening class into groups and assign Thesis Part 1 to three teams. Add the third team to the assignment.

Task #4: Holidays can get busy! You have both a virtual gallery walk-thru for your class on 12/23 and an in-person small family event on the Upper West Side on Christmas day. This is a special bonus for your paid students so make sure use Microsoft Teams when going live.

Mid-Fi User Testing Data

our mid-fidelity user testing insights:

• Task #1: Direct
• Task #2: Indirect/Fail. User does not realize that they need to go through chat to achieve task. Overall app has this feature but unsure w/o familiarity.
• Task#3: Direct. Minor issue of clicking on just contact icon to move forward.
• Task #4: Indirect. User does not understand events can now hold various location options (virtual, in person, Microsoft Teams meeting)

our recommendations:

• Task #1: Direct due to open space. Wondering if addition of task information will create issues.
• Task #2: Chat button needs to have more visibility.
• Task#3: Make the text next to the contact icon clickable as well.
• Task #4: Find a way to distinguish various location options available

Next Steps to High Fidelity Screens and Final User Testing

Through these design iterations it becomes more and more clear that if the task is the structural framework for everything, then the sub-chat becomes the doorway. While the task becomes the system for which everything is being organized, the sub-chat (or the meeting space) becomes the entrance to be able to share information with the appropriate people. It is thus very important that the user know that it is a key entry point. Otherwise the last step of uploading information fails.

The lo and mid-fidelity phase adequately established the framework. However, the challenge in developing screens during the high-fidelity phase will be to make sure the sub-chat is clearly found and intuitive in its multi-functional aspects. In conclusion, to master remote communication the doorway must be open.