Calm Down, Google





How to redesign google home to provide a responsive calm experience?



Keywords:
Human Centered Design, Persona, Prototype, A/B Test,  Cognitive Walkthroughs

Role:
User Researcher, Interaction Designer
Year:
2019, 10 weeks

Teams:
Neha Deshpande, Theresa von Rennenberg, Vennila Vilvanathan, Javier Estupinan

Professor: 
Cristina Zaga


About:
Our project aims to create a calmer user experience with Google Home mini. Conducted user research to look for pain points, we found that Google home might be activited randomly which annoys and even scares users. To resolve this issue, we focus on creating a calm, controlled and enjoyable user experience by adding up gesture control. And in the end we conducted user tests to assess our prototyped experiences for further development. 



Understand and reflect





︎
User Interviews


The user interviews were conducted with two students in their early 20's. The aim was to understand the experience that users go through while using the Google Home mini.







︎
Context Research



Context research was conducted to understand how users interact with the Google Home mini in different contexts, and following contexts were found.




Listening to songs on the device while cooking

Watching TV with the device on the side

Sleeping with the device on, so it wakes the user up







︎Pain points 


The users expressed that they feel these emotions while interacting with the Google Home mini

😤️
Annoying-
 activates to random TV noise

😰️
Scary -
activates while the user is sleeping

😵️
Frustrating -
doesn't get what is spoken instantly

︎User Needs 


From the user research, the user needs were obtained. It was found that users want the device to be:

😇️Quiet

😌️Smart

😀️Friendly






︎Design Challenges



Our aim is to design for socially responsible calm technology:


.

..which provides a better interaction experience


...which makes the device accessible and inclusive


...results in giving the control in the hands of the users







︎Taking the Thing Perspective



To reach the goal of design challenge, we created a persona for Google Home by brainstorm on ‘A day in the life’, inner life, social life and life course of the object (Cila et al., 2015).




A day in the life of Google Home
Inner life of Google Home







Life course
Social life







Ideate and Create





We conducted 4 techniques for ideation phase:

︎”Point of view” problem statement

Helps to ideate in a goal-oriented manner
 

︎Brainwriting

One participant  wrote their ideas down on a piece of paper and then pass it on to the next participant who uses them as a trigger for their own ideas;

︎Worst possible ideas

Bringing out all the bad ideas we had in our minds for the identified user problems, as doing this can often lead you to the best one

︎Brainstorming

After we had carried out all these techniques, we brainstormed over all the ideas we had and the outcomes from each ideation technique




“point of view” problem statement
Worst possible ideas
Brainwriting
-



︎Ideation results



  • Sleeping mode for a completely quite status


which requires haptic interaction to activate the device


  • Light feedback for the users


Being quiet and calm while providing feedback to make the device less annoying and interfering


  • Gesture control along with voice control 


Guesture control fits well into the natural human instinct. Gesture could make up the context of misunderstanding given by voice control. Reversely, voice could help with gesture control fails. Apart from this, the device will become accessible to persons with a speaking disability.





Interaction Scanerios  ︎︎︎

Gesture control instruction when voice couldn’t be understood

Sleeping mode with haptic wake up gives a complete quite environment






︎ Experiential Prototype




We initially had three goals, namely ‘accessibility’, ‘control’ and ‘calmer approach’. As the users see Google Home as a ‘warm friend’ to talk to and who makes their life easier, we narrowed down our focus to reduce the ‘annoyance’ in the users and give more control while communicating with the device


︎︎︎prototype

 


︎ Interaction Design 




We implemented five basic functions that the user can apply on a regular day using gesture controls. The gestures were chosen such that the users can easily relate with them in daily life and feel natural about it










Evaluate and Communicate





︎User Test 


Main questions:
  • How does our prototyped experience help the user to communicate with Google Home?
  • How much control does the user have?
  • And how does the new Google Home experience enhance the overall user experience as well as Google Home’s calmness?

︎Method


  • Expert-based cognitive walkthrough:
help to understand a product’s learnability for new users

  • User-based A/B Testing by Wizard of Oz:
optimize the user experience and to test two design features





Cognitive walkthrough

 

Participants: 
4 design-based university students 

Flow: 
  • Being acquainted with prototype: giving a manual with gestures they need to perform 

  • Asked them to perform actual tasks: playing the next song, reducing the volume, asking for the weather forecast and switching off the device.

  • 1-7 scale to measure the finishing time(efficiency), completed rate(effectiveness), satisfaction rate (satisfaction)


Results ︎︎︎
Results from survey
Results from interviews



A/B Test

Participants:
10 university students without design base

Contexts:
Cooking a meal at home and listening to music while doing so with the help of Google Home.

Flow:
  • Asked participants to accomplish the tasks, then fill a questionnaire at the end and a short semi-structured interview regarding the usability and user experience.

  • 1st A/B test: gesture control vs. voice control: Evaluate our prototyped way of communication and user experience

  • 2nd A/B test: voice feedback vs. light feedback: To measure the prototype’s calmness


Results ︎︎︎

Results from gesture vs. voice control
Results from light vs. voice feedback





Inisghts from semi-structured interviews ︎︎︎



1. Previous Experience


Most of the users who test the prototype didn’t have previous experience with a voice assistant. The few users with previous experience used Alexa or similar.

2.Preferred Features


The preferred feature by the participants was the gesture control, especially music player controls. The led feedback was also liked. Both features were perceived less anoying than current feraturers.

3. Intuitive


Most of the participants felt the gestures natural and comfortable. While some found them unintuitive, all agreed that the gestures were easy to learn after some use.

4. Overall Acceptance


Overall the prototype was well recieved and gesture control was

preferred by most participants as they felt uncomfortable talking to a device out loud.

5. Pain Points


The main concern was the difficulty on memorizing more gestures when new features will be included, and some actions are hard to translate into

6. Daily Use


Most of the participants think they could use the prototype in their daily routines and felt comfortable around it, but they don’t consider the prototype a necessity.








Discussion and refection 








︎Reflection on Results

  • Both tests yielded similar results and the overall experience perceived by the participants was positive 

  • Gesture commands as an alternative to voice commands, in general, provided a more natural experience according to the participants, as many participants consider it strange to talk to an IoT device

  • Among the experiences, changing music with gestures was the preferred interaction as most participants felt these controls naturally comfortable

  • Led lights feedback may not be necessary for every response of the device

  • Deactivating the device completely through a button was felt secure. As most of the participants mentioned this is mainly because physical contact guarantees that their command is understood without being mistaken




︎ Reflection on Socially Responsible Calm Technology



  • Prototyped calm experience fits into the users’ periphery in the calmest way possible without being interruptive or annoying 

  • Google Home’’s interruptive and annoying nature is taken care of by incorporating gesture control and light feedback.

  • Prototyped experiences helped in making the interaction natural. This makes the device as a regular being in thedaily life  

  • More calmness helps the users carry out  their daily activities without being led on by the device

  • More work can be done further to ensure that the design keeps offering better experiences with the changing societal and user needs





︎Reflection on the Design Process


  • User research is filled with listening, understanding and reflecting. Transfered  “I think ...” and “I feel ...”, to ''People might feel ...” and “The user might think...”

  • The thing persona guided us to create a calm smart device with particular roles during people’s daily life and distinct thing-personality.

  • Difficulties is to avoid more problems generating during solving existing problems

  • Crucial to establish a rapport between the human and the technology by coordinating the conflict between expectation of users and limit of the technology

  • Keep thinking and relecting in the daily life


Further development


  1. How to smoothly transfer and distinct voice input mode and gesture recognition mode, otherwise it makes the usability complex
  2. How to avoid gestures being activated randomly by daily movement? Physical touching activating may be a possible solution, but it would make the experience less convenient.