Beta Testing

Why:

Beta testing of the Wrap Authoring Tool was conducted to get feedback from the real world prior to the commercial release by giving access to the tool to a small segment of the intended audience.

Team:

VP of Product, Director of Customer Success

Tools:

GoToMeeting, Google Forms

My Process:

A number of selected beta participants were onboarded and given access to the Wrap Authoring tool to use it under real everyday conditions over the course of two weeks. During this period, the participants were asked to keep a journal about their positive and negative impressions as well as potential enhancements. After two weeks, I interviewed all the beta participants about their experience and analyzed their diary entries for the emerging themes around positive impressions, negative impressions and suggestions. The results were shared with the Product, Design and Engineering team.

Outcome:

Based on the beta testing results, some minor remaining flows within the product were spotted and fixed prior to the commercial release.

• Client: Wrap Media
• Date: August 2015 - Present
• Service: Beta-Testing

Usability Testing

Intro:

Amazon allows its customers in the US and UK to contact Customer Service using a text messaging feature available in the mobile Amazon app. During the contact, customer interacts with Artificial Intelligence and is transferred to a real customer service representative for more complex inquiries. Several designs with different workflow and UI were designed to identify which provides the smoothest customer experience.

Why:

A usability testing was conducted to evaluate customer experience with each design and their overall usability. Five US and five UK Amazon customers took part in the testing to identify if there is any difference in experience and expectations between the two groups that should be taken into consideration for localization of the feature for the UK market.

Team:

Product Team

Tools:

Lookback

My Process:

After identifying the research objectives with the product team, I independently designed the research plan that included the scenarios with tasks and follow up questions to be asked during the sessions in order to answer the research questions. An external agency was hired to recruit test participants based on provided recruitment criteria. Usability testing was conducted using a task-based think aloud interview with UK and US customers (five in each group). They were asked to completed a series of tasks designed to assess their experience and perception of the usability, functionality, navigation, design, aesthetics and layout. After data collection, I compiled and analyzed the data to identify common patterns, wrote and presented the report to the Product team. The results were grouped by user group and by task, including task completion, positive impressions, issues noted and the recommendations suggested by users on how to improve the workflow or additional features that could be considered.

Outcome:

The results identified which concept to implement and additional ways to further improve the overall usability. Furthermore, several opportunities were identified to customize the language so its sounds natural (not too American) to the UK customers.

• Client: Amazon
• Date: April 2016 - Present
• Service: Usability Testing

Product Conceptualization

Why:

An immersion session was conducted to develop the concept of Tourlane online travel agency services on demand as well as the customer journeys.

Team:

CEO and executive team

Tools:

Post-its & marker

My Process:

I designed and facilitated an immersion session with Tourlane team members to define the goal of the product, target audience, use scenarios, as well as the customer work and task flow.

Outcome:

The task flows were later translated into customer-system interaction steps, which were used to drive the prototype design.

• Client: Tourlane
• Date: December 2015 - March 2016
• Service: Product Conceptualization

Website Redesign

Why:

After receiving a number of negative remarks about the library website, the Library executives decided to redesign the website to offer more online services and increase the overall website traffic.

Team:

Collaboration with the library director and contracted programer

Tools:

Qualtrics, OptimalSort, TreeJack, Morae

My Process:

I conducted this project in six stages:

Step 1: Competitive Analysis- Competitive analysis of other academic library websites was done to determine content and services to be included on the website as well as the best design practices

Step 2: User Needs Assessment - User needs assessment was conducted using an online survey and 1-on-1 interviews to determine user's’ experience and impressions with the current website as well as the content and services they would like to have available on the website

Step 3: Card Sort - A list of content and functionalities from the needs assessment was used to create cards for the card sort exercise. Open card sort, using Optimal Sort, was performed to determine the information architecture of the website. Information findability was evaluated using the Tree Test.

Step 4: Prototype Testing - Based on the results of card sort and tree testing, three different prototypes were built and presented to the users to get their feedback. They completed a set of tasks and selected the most favorable version.

Step 5: Heuristic Evaluation - Based on the prototype testing results, the final prototype was developed and examined for its compliance with the standard set of usability heuristics. Design changes were proposed and implemented.

Step 6: Usability Testing - The final version of the prototype was tested with a total of 15 participants (5 for each user group) using the think-aloud protocol. Based on the results the final changes were made and the website was released.

Outcome:

After a complete redesign, the website traffic was increased by 330% and got significantly more positive comments by the users on a daily basis.

• Client: Saint Louis Community College Library
• Date: February 2011 - March 2012
• Service: Website Redesign

Persona Development

Why:

Persona were developed to create reliable and realistic representations of PF key audience segments for all the team members to use as a reference during their decision making process.

Team:

Practice Fustion Design Team, Data Team

Tools:

audio recorder

My Process:

My first step in developing personas was to determine what we already know about the our target audience - patient portals users. I did the secondary analysis of the existing studies and in-house quantitative data about the user of Patient Fusion. Next, I did a number of stakeholders interviews followed by the field research using in-person interviews. All the data was compiled and analyzed for the emerging themes. Segmentation was used to identify the primary and secondary personas. At the end, I wrote a narrative for the each persona including their aptitudes, attitudes, motivation, technology use and proficiency as well as their health condition and concerns. The PF Visual design team designed the deliverable.

Outcome:

All Practice Fusion team members use patient personas to help focus their decisions surrounding Patient Fusion portal by adding a layer of real-world considerations.

• Client: Practice Fusion
• Date: May - August 2014
• Service: Persona Development

Focus Groups

Why:

The Wells Fargo’s executive team wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the tellers’ experience with and expectations of the newly introduced online scheduling platform as well as the available training on how to the use the platform.

Tools:

audio and camera recorder

My Process:

I wrote a set of questions to guide the focus group interview and recruited about 10 participants for each of four focus groups. The questions used to facilitate conversation were based on the results of the phone interviews I conducted a few weeks earlier. I moderated all focus group sessions at two different locations, in California and Florida. After the sessions, I compiled the observer's’ notes, analyze the recordings and physical artifacts created during the sessions. The results were compiled in the final report, which I presented to the the project team.

Outcome:

A list of pain points and areas of opportunities presented in the report were used to drive a design of a new version of the WF’s online scheduling platform.

• Client: Wells Fargo Bank
• Date: December 2014
• Service: Focus Groups

USABILITY OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Topic:

In this course, I discuss the role of usability within the wider concept of human-computer interaction. The course covers the usability concept, usability testing method and the process of planning, conducting, and reporting usability testing results. At the end of semester, students are prepared to conduct their own small-scale usability tests.

When:

Spring 2016 - Present

HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

Topic:

In this course, I introduce students to the theories of psychology and on how the human being interacts with online information systems. The course covers insight on how knowledge of the human capabilities and preferences can influence the way in which we construct online systems and introduces methods and techniques used to design and build user interfaces.

When:

Spring 2018 - Present

CUSTOMER-CENTERED DIGITAL EXPERIENCES

Topic:

In this lecture, I discussed the importance of creating online products and services following the user-centered design framework and the role of UX research throughout the process. .

When:

Fall 2017