In the fall of 2018 Google collaborated with the SCAD Pro program to research and develop concepts for a Geo/Maps mobile experience for the Young Urban User. For 10 weeks I was privileged to join a team of students as we investigated the Young Urban User, received mentorship from Google Stakeholders, and ultimately delivered an engaging, empathetic concept.
Detailed below is the process that was used to generate our deliverables. However, UI samples and other deliverables are covered under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. If you would like to see or experience this project in more detail, I can offer a curated tour of our process website. Please contact me for details.
My Role: User Experience Designer
The chemistry on this project was electric. I have never been surrounded by such positive and talented individuals before this, each person actively strove to participate in every aspect of the collaboration.
As a User Experience Designer, I was selected for the project based on my skills with interviewing users, affinitizing and drawing insights, wire-framing and prototyping. In the final weeks of the project I was selected to conduct a product walkthrough with our primary stakeholder: a 30 minute one on one tour of our deliverable.
Google X SCADpro
Process
Week 1 - Secondary Research
In the first week of the collaboration, we aligned as a team to discover our strengths and express our preferences. We conducted competitor analysis and secondary research into the Young Urban User.
We began researching to get a feeling of the landscape in our brief and put our assumptions and hypothesis to the test.
Our team gathered information from published articles and studies to optimize our understanding of the target audience and developing technologies. It influenced our interview questions as well as furthered our overall knowledge of the target audiences social, explorative and wellness needs
After the gathering of secondary research, we had more questions and were ready to speak directly to our target population to grasp who they really are.
Weeks 2 & 3 - Primary Research & Affinitization
More than 100 long form interviews held both in person and remotely led to surprising insights and exposure to amazing people from over 24 countries. We also took to the downtown hubs of Savannah to conduct intercept interviews with the array of tourists, students and residents.
After weeks of researching 18-24 year olds and how they interact with the world around them, their needs, desires and goals, we found common threads and established them as insights. Insights which would form the framework of our design solutions.
Week 4 - Frameworks & Ideation
Analyzing the data allowed us to identify emerging themes and decide on the direction for the project. During our fourth week on the project, stakeholders from Google visited us to provide mentorship on frameworks.
Using different techniques like imagining How Might We (HMWs), Point of Views (POVs), our team was able to combine the insights and themes we had discovered, and apply them to specific users. This allowed us to identify key opportunities to impact the user’s life for the better.
This led us directly into concept ideation. Using a variety of tools such as crazy 8’s and mind mapping, we generated concepts which could meet the needs and opportunities our research had revealed.
Week 5 - Concepts and Mid-Project Critique
While organizing the concepts that came from the ideation sessions we saw that the majority of the concepts fell into one of several categories. These categories were made unique to the project from their connection to the users.
During our midterm, each theme and concept were backed up by user quotes, secondary research, and opportunity statements to communicate the relationship between our data and concepts.
Client feedback post-midterm gave us a solid direction to pursue for our final solution and we were ready to connect with our users again to get their thoughts.
Week 6 - Concepts to Features
After feedback from our stakeholders, our team revisited the work that we had done. We compared our initial research with our frameworks, and frameworks to concepts. We reaffirmed that 18-24 year olds have a unique perspective on the physical and digital worlds which they inhabit.
This unique view allowed us to adjust our concepts so that they would create a platform tailored to their generation. A platform which was able to blend together the physical and the digital.
In the physical world, the 18-24 year old would be able to “unplug.” Features of the platform allow the young urban user to find spontaneity, privacy, and time away from their phone.
In the digital world, the platform is a curator. The platform learns the user’s preferences, provides pertinent data, and allows for a variety of choices that treat the user as the individual they are.
Combining the two, the platform fills in gaps for the user: remembering places, events, friends, and preferences so that the user can move carefree.
Weeks 7 & 8 - Testing and Ideation
Round 1
For the user testing 1 we wanted to know whether the user could understand the concepts and what each screen delivers to them. We gave them the prototype and asked them to tell us what the understand when they saw the page and how they navigate from one page to the next page.
Round 2
We tested grayscale wireframes that had been iterated on based off of first-round user testing. Our major goal was to get our user’s perspectives on the features we had designed for, so we could land on the final concept flow after this testing. We also had few different entry points for AR features that we wanted to test with.
Round 3
Taking our hi-fidelity screens for the third and final round of testing, we wanted to focus on details for each screen and validate that the user’s navigation around the app is intuitive and cohesive as a whole.
Weeks 9 & 10 - Delivery
During the final weeks of the collaboration, we planned a live demo of our new platform. Our goal was to immerse the Google stakeholders in the role and mindset of the Young Urban User.
I was chosen to lead one of the stakeholders on 30 minute walking tour using the platform as our guide.
The immersive experience was well received, and was captured on film by a Google documentary crew.
Trip to Google
After the collaboration had concluded, several of us were chosen to fly to Google Headquarters to present our platform to designers and stakeholders.
We were challenged with re-creating the unique walking tour, but in a conference room setting. Through ideation sessions, we crafted an interactive adventure that allowed stakeholders to learn about our ideas while also participating in a virtual journey.
The Google experience was incredible, and our deliverables reflect the excitement of our team and the efforts of our labors.
If you would like to learn more about my role on this team, and my contribution to the final deliverables, I am able to share more detailed information in a formal interview setting.
