Overview

This five week research project was completed for a small startup that provides assistive technology for blind and visually impaired people, with the help and oversight of Aira’s UX Designer. The goal of this project was to provide insight into their new “guest app,” how people felt about their experiences, and what influenced their decision making when using the app.

Methods

• User Interview

• Data Synthesis

• Data Visualization

• User Journeys

• User Personas

Background

Aira is an assistive technology startup that connects blind and visually impaired people with live trained agents, through smart glass technology. Through the application, blind people (aka Explorers) could get help with a range of tasks, such as navigation, cooking, getting ready, or anything (short of driving!) by having the agent describe their physical location/environment, etc.

At the time of this internship, Aira had just created a new “guest app,” which gave users free access to Aira, at select geofenced locations, such as disability-focused conferences, transit stations, and corporate partner locations. 

My Role

I was the lead researcher for this project, formulating the research plan, recruiting conducting interviews, and data synthesis.

However, I was extremely fortunate to have the help and oversight of their full-time UX Designer, and Product Lead, both of whom guided me to best practices, by pushing me to tweak my outreach communications for recruiting, critiquing my interview questions and interview style, data synthesis, etc.

I also had the help of another intern and UX Designer to conduct and transcribe a few of the user interviews.

Timeline

Formulating Research Goals and Test Plan: 1 Week

Recruiting for User interviews: .5 weeks

Conducting and Transcribing Interviews: 1.5 Weeks

Synthesizing Data: 1 Week

Data Visualization and Presentation: 1 Week

Research Statement and Goals

1. Maximize monetary value within the guest setting

   • Understanding how people think about the app will allow us to direct our changes in the way that promotes guest explorers utilizing the geofencing

   • What influences guest’s decision to convert to a subscription or not

   
   

2. Maximize value for guests

   • Provide an app that is fulfilling to use

     1. Understanding which areas of development are the most effective at increasing satisfaction

   
   

3. Understanding the “lifecycle” of guest explorers

   • Understanding the timelines and methods of downloading will help us adjust our approach within multiple areas of the guest app (ie, development, marketing, etc.)

     1. Do we see a difference in continual use between guests who download the app at a conference, access location, or at home? In upgraded subscriptions?

        1. If we do see patterns of use based on how guest explorers download the app, how can we tailor our approach in expanding the guest app

     2. How does the first call potentially influence guests going on to make multiple calls?

Research Methodology

For this project we used user interviews in order to get a depth of understanding of the experiences of the guest app.

The user interviews consisted of 60 minute semistructured phone interviews (26 total.) We had three particular topics to focus on, and a generally prescribed order to ask them in, when possible, but asked followup questions when more relevant to the user’s previous response.

The questions for these interviews were intentionally very open ended, so that we could allow users to share their thoughts and feelings without leading them to any particular answer. As a general rule, we moved from the most open ended questions, to less open ended questions as follow ups, so that we would not influence how they responded.

We particularly wanted to know about the “lifecycle” of a user; what their first experience(s) were like, and how that influenced their decision making about further calls or possibly subscribing.

We also wanted to know more about how their experiences made them think and feel about the app, company, service etc. 

Finally, we also wanted to know how these new users used the app, for example if they had a particular task in mind, or just wanted to explore how they may use it in the future. Because the guest app was primarily being downloaded and used at conferences, as opposed to transit stations, we wanted to know if the environment they first used it in had any affect on how likely guest users were to use the app again.

Recruitment Criteria and Process

In order to get a feel for the contrast between successful guest app experience, we recruited guest users who had used the guest app but didn’t sign up, and users who had gone on to sign up for a paid Aira subscription following their guest app experience.

We used 50 free Aira minutes as an incentive to recruit as quickly as possible.

Analysis and Synthesis Process

After each interview, we discussed key takeaways, pain points, surprising notes, similarities between users' thoughts, etc.

After completing and transcribing all 26 interviews, I combed through responses to start analysing trends on a larger scale. I used google sheets, to start compiling similar trends between users. I also collected quotes that highlighted common themes of many users.

Although I didn’t formally use affinity mapping, I used a similar method, in google sheets, to analyze trends with different quotes, and thoughts about their experiences.

Outputs and Deliverables

To communicate our findings to the rest of the company, we used user journeys, user personas, and data visualization. 

The user journeys helped to simmer down the common types of experiences guests were having, and contrast the key points in an average experience that impacted guest’s thoughts and feelings, as well as their decision to continue to use Aira, or abandon it as a possible tool at their disposal.

We also created user personas to highlight how users might react differently with the same experience. This gave us a way to talk about how we might tailor the guest experiences in a way that was more satisfying to specific users, and make design suggestions that were most impactful.

We also used data visualizations to help give a breakdown of the common themes- such as key factors in “conversion” to a paid subscription, and how positive first experiences translated to conversion.

I created a presentation that incorporated all of our synthesized findings to several teams, including marketing, product, sales, and the C-suite level people.

 Impact

Following my research, Aira rolled out a “five minute free” guest app, which allowed users to try Aira.

During the first three months of this offer, subscription rates increased by nearly 20% and continue to remain higher than before this project. New explorers during this time cited this “trial” as the primary reason they signed up. Users who got to experience that first great call, and interaction with the agents, said that it made the value of Aira tangible, even when they felt that the plans were more expensive than they would have paid for otherwise.

To this day (3+ years later) Aira still offers five minute free calls to users. Even their paying customers get their first 5 minutes of calls for free.

The new problem facing Aira, is that users abuse this feature and hang up and call again at the five minute mark so that they don’t have to buy a subscription. This problem affects both users and agents, in that calls are rushed, and that agents may be confused at how to resume a call for a task that was started by another agent.

In order to combat this problem, my iterating suggestion, is to have a forced time-out before users can place another free call. I recommend this because users who do have short tasks- such as setting their thermostat, or reading a document, still have the value of these short calls, but it discourages people who are trying to avoid paying, by delaying their ability to make back to back five minute calls.