SPUR Connect
Revising an Existing Design
Client:
SPUR Connect is an early phase startup whose goal and mission is to help people arrange spontaneous professional connections, specifically while traveling for business. SPUR Connect is tailored to business owners and entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their networks and establish meaningful business relationships. In addition to assisting with the social side of business development, SPUR Connect helps users document business meetings for tax purposes, making it easier to track deductions that otherwise might have been missed.
Team Mission:
Our mission as a team is to help SPUR Connect accomplish their goals as a business and to provide ideas as to what they should be prioritizing moving forward based off user inquiries and thorough research. Then, after completing and synthesizing the research data together, separating as a team and individually designing a prototype that will best accommodate the users of SPUR Connect as they travel looking to establish meaningful business relationships.
Plan:
Evaluate the usability of SPUR Connect’s existing design. Conduct a cognitive walkthrough of the SPUR Connect app. Perform a contextual inquiry in order to better understand user habits and tools to determine what they are looking for. Gather and synthesize data (affinity diagram). Put together a findings and protocol plan. Design a meaningful prototype to help expand the current structure of the SPUR Connect app.
My Role:
UX Researcher, Moderator, UX Designer
Methods:
Team:
Colleen Borgendale, Nicole Neumann
Tools:
Pen and Paper
Google Sheets
Google Docs
Zoom
Figma
Designing a prototype that will help SPUR Connect give their users a valuable tool while traveling and wanting to connect with other professionals.
SPUR Connect goals:
Connect like-minded business professionals who frequently travel by creating a business documenting and networking tool.
Cater to business owners and entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their networks and establish meaningful business relationships.
Help users document business meetings for tax purposes, making it easier to track deductions.
Team Goals:
Conduct meaningful and intentional inquiries of users.
Execute a well thought out and detailed plan which will benefit every party involved.
Improve the usability and functionality of the existing design of the SPUR Connect app.
Initial Steps
Cognitive Walkthrough
Above is a sample of the steps within the tasks from our spreadsheet
After my team and I established our goals, we began to perform a variety of tasks within the app. These tasks were given to us by the client. For each step, we asked four questions. The questions and steps were then organized into a spreadsheet.
Questions:
Is the effect of the current action the same as the user's goals?
Is the action visible?
Will the user recognize the action as the right one?
Will the user understand the feedback?
We also included screenshots for each step of the task within SPUR Connect’s current design. View the full cognitive walkthrough and screenshots below.
Here are screenshots of one of the tasks (registering for an account) that my team and I performed within the current SPUR Connect app. This will give insight into the existing functionality and design layout.
Ethnographic Research
Contextual Inquiry
Here are the goals as well as the session details for our contextual inquiry
After completing our cognitive walkthrough, we set out to create a plan in order to evaluate how potential users interact with their current business tools and determine ways this could be applied to help the client. This inquiry was done via zoom and lasted for one hour. One team member moderated the call, one handled the tech side, and the other observed and took detailed notes as the inquiry progressed. We were also able to observe several other sessions with previous users which helped us gather more data. This would be greatly beneficial in the next steps.
Main takeaways from the inquiry:
Users want their tools to be synced.
Exporting documents and or receipts is a high priority.
Nicole and I in the zone (left)
Colleen and I enjoying a brief research reprieve (right)
Synthesizing Research and Coming Up With a Plan
Affinity Diagramming
Once the contextual inquiry was complete, our team came together one last time and started to synthesize the information we gathered. We did this by categorizing our research in the form of an affinity diagram. This was done with different colored post-it notes, each color represented a user.
Research Categories:
User info
User current tools
Expectations of tools
SPUR Connect categories:
SPUR Connect feedback
SPUR Connect expectations
SPUR Connect photos
Nicole and I writing our findings down (left)
The team collectively collaborating (middle)
Colleen and I categorizing a myriad of post-it notes (right)
Solo Planning
Findings and Protocol Plan
After the affinity diagram, we each went our separate way and started ideating our prototyping processees. The first steps were to highlight key insights and note pain points that were found within the contextual inquiry and data synthesis.
Key Insights:
This app would be used regularly if it was connected to the users other business tools
Users value their privacy while also wanting to connect with other professionals
Users are discontent with their current business and networking tools
Pain Points:
No real landing page (accessibility issues were a theme throughout)
Users were confused as to where the photo upload area was
Concerns about community safety within the app
Location should be general and not precise
Search isn’t as detailed as it could be
Next came the user stories, which directly connected back to everything found during the research phase. These stories are meant to support key insights and or address pain points/accessibility issues within the SPUR Connect app. Ultimately these stories helped paint the picture for the final phase, designing the prototype.
User stories: (these are not real stories and were made up based off the contextual inquiry)
User story #1: As a small business owner who values time and privacy, I would like to have the ability to quickly upload and then export photos or notes to a tool of my choice.
User story #2: As a small business owner who is fully invested during meetings, I would like to have some sort of voice recording tool in order to reference and then document/save key parts at a later time so that I can be present while connecting to my peers.
User story #3: As a small business owner and someone who is intentional about who I meet, it would be nice to be able to filter out industries in a more specific way in order to get the most out of the spontaneity of the meeting.
User story #4: As a small business owner, I would like there to be some way to leave a review for someone after meeting them in order to filter out and or protect other people from falling victim to unprofessional behavior. Or at least a way to flag someone if they demonstrate this type of behavior. Three strikes and you’re out.
With the findings and protocol plan complete, I came up with this updated informational architecture diagram for SPUR Connect based off the research above. View the diagram better here.
Designing The Prototype
The first step when designing the prototype was to take all of the research, synthesizing, and planning and put them together in the form of hand drawn, low-fidelity sketches. Going off the created user stories and data from the findings and protocol plan, I drew up several ideas of what this design should accommodate to help SPUR Connect and their users maintain harmony.
Here are the low-fidelity sketches with certain areas highlighted to emphasize where the user is at within the apps hierarchy
Users value their privacy and safety just like any other app. Giving them the the ability to flag accounts for unprofessional behavior was an absolutely necessary addition.
Users having control over and being able to export their business documents/attachments was another high priority.
Users being able to record their business interactions and then go back and save snippets or annotate from the recordings seemed to be another necessary addition. This would help users stay focussed rather than being worried about taking excessive notes in a short amount of time.
SPUR Connect Prototype
The Prototype
Clickable Prototype/Guided Prototype Walkthrough
Moving onto the digitization. The prototype was the culmination of all the research and planning. Several components were added to the design and all of them reflect the goals mentioned at the beginning of this case study as well as the goals of the client. These changes were added to increase accessibility, improve functionality, and ensure that SPUR Connect is a safe platform for business professionals to meet.
Updates:
Overall accessibility
Hierarchy modifications
Information architecture cleaned up
Location made general and not precise
New Features:
Landing page (home page)
Report feature
Recording option
Exporting options
Explore the interactive prototype or click on the guided demo below!