5G Holoportation Mystery Box
Services: UX Research | UI Design
Project
​Rogers has challenges determining the best way to demo 5G technology. The advantages of the technology are not easy to communicate to ordinary consumers, and other than the obvious speed-test meter, Rogers needs other ways to relate and communicate its leadership position in rolling out the most advanced wireless technology.
As a part of our MDEI (Master of Digital Experience Innovation) Capstone Project at the University of Waterloo, my team and I were partnered with Rogers 5G Create Lab to find the best way to demo 5G to the average Canadian consumer. This project was scheduled for our Spring term (May 2020 -August 2020) which also happened to be the time when pandemic lockdowns were enforced that led everyone to work from home. Our distributed team of six followed Agile framework and worked remotely to provide innovative solution to our challenge.
Objectives
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Research and design a solution that effectively communicate commonplace uses of 5G technology to average Canadian consumers.
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Proposed solution should demonstrate Rogers Canadian history and links with their 5G Create theme.
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Identify the specific audience that would be receptive to a 5G demonstration
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Showcases Rogers as a leader in 5G and innovation space.
My Role
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As a UX Research Lead I was tasked to lead all research efforts and helped direct team with research initiatives. During the initial research phase I did a comprehensive case study on 5G technology. I worked on creating personas, empathy maps, journey maps. I created survey to explore ridership habits during pandemic and did comparative analysis on different generations of cellular networks - best practices, and key differences. I was also accountable for ensuring everyone was meeting research goals.
During the ideation and iteration stages, I worked on creation of low and medium-fidelity prototypes and was involved in all group ideation, solution refinement, iteration and quality assessment of final proof of concept (POC).
Design Process
Empathize Define Ideate Prototype Test
Design Solution
We started our project by drafting a Team Charter that defined our team norms and work ethics. Since we were following the Agile framework, we worked on a well-defined, task dependency model Project Plan, with complete details about final deliverables within each sprint.
To build empathy with our users we first did research to understand how much an average internet user knows about 5G. Through our research we learnt average internet consumer doesn’t know much about 5G besides it being a newest technology that can offer lightning fast connection speed. Keeping the social distancing constraints and Rogers’ objectives into perspective we came up with the idea of Holoportation Mystery Booth, which was selected based on NUF (New, Useful, Feasible) test.
Our idea is more of a marketing solution that creates a fun space to talk about 5G and caters to Rogers positioning with a family friendly experience. This user-centered solution is real-time interactive for both the viewer and the person being projected as the hologram and can be done anywhere. The holoported person does not have to come in physical contact with anyone and we can minimize their contact with outside people to keep them healthy.
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We decided to follow the non-linear approach of design thinking process to provide satisfying solution to problems that affect a user's experience with the new technology.
Research
We began our research with 5G market analysis, methods of 5G demonstrations and vast potential of 5G use cases. Our research data helped us define the average Canadian internet consumer that aged between 25-44 with no difference in gender.
Empathy Mapping
To define user attitudes and behaviors we build empathy maps for a deep understanding of our end users. The mapping process helped us identified missing information in existing user data. Since this was a user-centered design, we build empathy maps at the very beginning of the design process.
Insights
We found that our personas had several things in common:
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Disliking internet lag and buffering
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Reliance on the internet to do things
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Not knowing why, they should switch to 5G
Personas
Using our findings from research, we worked on building our personas. We created 6 personas to define the average Canadian consumer according to data from Statistics Canada.
Ideation
Top Persona
Based on who represents the average users between the two extremes, we selected our top persona for our specific solution. We used Strategyzer’s Value Proposition Canvas to help shape the solution.
User quote “I feel a little skeptical about 5G…but I could use some of that speed.”
Key Features and Functions
We used Success Matrix to identify the features we want to be part of the holoportation experience. Our results identified relaxed, casual time out with the loved ones as the key denominator for this experience.
We decided to divide the experience into three major segments: AR Component, Timeline, Holoportation Mystery Booth. We then did research into how each of this component would tie up together to create a complete user experience.
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Idea Development
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Augmented Reality (AR) Component: To showcase Rogers as a leader in innovation space we decided to use AR visual cues to drive user to the booth.
Timeline: Keeping in line with company’s objective we decided to use outside of the booth to display Rogers Canadian history from 1960s till now. It can change in accordance with the theme. For e.g.; it could be Rogers and Blue Jays history if we focus on baseball.
Hologram: Comparative analysis on technology used: PORTL and Microsoft HoloLens. Size, capacity and interior of the booth, who would be the holoported person (a celebrity, Blue Jays player), swags, best way to collect user feedback.
Journey Map
To dive deeper into our user needs, we created a user journey to understand the touch points and expectations of our user through different stages of holoportation experience. We identified three crucial stages for this process: Discover, Experience and Exiting the booth. Journey mapping helped us understand user behaviour across different stages.
Stakeholders
University of Waterloo
Rogers
Year
2020
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Methods
Comparative Analysis
User Journey
Personas
Wireframes
Survey
Story telling
Tools
Figma
Adobe XD
Jamboard
Idea Flip
Sketch
Affinity Photos
Storyboard
We created a storyboard illustration for the whole experience.
Final Prototype
AR Component
User experience begins with a phone notification to Rogers users that alerts them a surprise is waiting for them. AR arrows hovering over directing to the booth.
Timeline
A timeline of the history of major Rogers and Blue Jays milestones that becomes animated when viewed through their phone cameras.
Holoportation Booth
User will get a chance to have a real-time conversation with the holoported celebrity.
End Result
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Marketing Solution: It caters to the Rogers positioning with a family friendly experience that fits within our target audience of 25-44.
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Satisfying the End Users: This solution meets our consumer needs by being an accessible source of information about 5G technology that tells them why it's better than current available networks. And meets our partners’ needs by being engaging, 5G informative, and showcasing a daily use case by providing an opportunity of having virtual conversations through holograms.
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Safety First: Holographic conversations also speak to a COVID-nation need for social distancing and Canadians wanting to stay connected.
This project has been covered extensively on the official website of University of Waterloo.
Reflection
There was a lot to learn from this project, most importantly this project gave me a chance to transition from academic to professional work practice. While the pandemic lockdown restricted us from meeting in person as a team or with our users, but it gave us a chance to prepare ourselves for remote work environment, which I feel is a valuable asset in current climate when many companies feel work from home can be the next standard working model.
This project gave me a chance to have a clear understanding of Agile workflow and task management. I learnt how daily standups work, why it is important to follow sprint cycles and timelines and time duration defined in the project plan were estimates and subject to change.
We used Trello to track the progress of tasks in each sprint, which helped me keeping myself organized and updated about the work progress.
Although, this project was done remotely but I was very pleased with the outcome. We managed to use best practices of UX research and methodologies, our medium fidelity prototype offered best UI experience to the end users.