“How do we design an interactive desk interface that enhances workflow?”

In my Interaction Design II class, I worked alongside 3 other team members to design Lucid Desk. We utilized the Lean UX approach to complete the project, a framework that is based on three foundations: UX, Agile, and Scrum. UX centers on how a user interacts with a product, Agile is an iterative approach that divides the work into short phases, and Scrum ensures that the team stays aligned through a series of meetings. The Lean UX divides the process into sprints. Due to the duration of our class, we completed the project over two 3-week sprints that consisted of validating our assumptions, research, and usability testing.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project was completed in a hybrid format with some meetings occurring in-person and all interviews taking place virtually. We used Miro, Discord, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams to communicate. While I’m proud of our final product, please see the last section on this page for my reflection on what could be improved upon.

SPRINT 1, DESIGN WEEK 0

Kicking Off Lucid Desk & Aligning on a Shared Vision

In Design Week 0, we began by determining our product problem statement to give ourselves a vision for the project and provide a foundation for our assumptions. Our product problem statement described the current state of desks, where current solutions fail, and addressed our vision for gaps that exist.

Product Problem Statement: The product problem statement described the current state of desks and any gaps that exist. Although comfort and aesthetics are important in desk design, desk manufacturers fail to address how we can also utilize modern technology to improve our workflow when at our desk space. Our new product, Lucid Desk, will address this gap by integrating a touch-screen interface with apps into the desk itself. Our initial focus will be on learning what types of apps users will find useful while working at their desk.

Representing Our Potential Users Through Proto-Personas

We developed 3 proto-personas as our best guess as to who may use Lucid Desk. In contrast to personas, which I learned about through Alan Cooper’s Goal-Directed Design methodology, proto-personas are done without much research and are subject to change throughout the sprints. This is because we first base proto-personas off of our assumptions. Then, we seek evidence to confirm or deny these assumptions, meaning that the proto-personas have the potential to change drastically as we progress through the sprints.

Since we wanted to choose individuals who spend a significant amount of time at their desk, we settled on a student, a remote worker, and an office worker.

Deciding What We Need To Build

In order to test the assumptions, we transformed them into hypothesis statements, which yielded our product backlog. This indicated what we needed to accomplish to complete our desk.

Next, we assessed our hypothesis statements and prioritized them from most to least amount of risk and value. It was important to identify the riskiest hypothesis statements because they needed to be worked on first. The touchscreen desk interface was the riskiest feature because we were not confident that people would be open to it, and we would need to pivot if not. With the completion of our product backlog, we selected several hypothesis statements (shown above) that would comprise our sprint backlog to determine what would be completed in the first sprint.

SPRINT 1, WEEK 1

With the start of Week 1 of our first sprint, we kicked off our 2-day standups (standups done every second day)—15-minute meetings that allow each team member to give an update on the work they completed and whether or not they encountered any blockers. These standups kept the team aligned and set expectations for the next meeting. In our first meeting, we started wireframing a low-fidelity desk interface to present during interviews. The wireframing was divided among the team by feature from the sprint backlog— I worked on designing the music player.

SPRINT 1, WEEK 2

Diving Into Usability Testing

After finalizing our wireframe from Week 1, our primary focus was on usability testing during Week 2. Our sessions were held with two of the same participants from the previous week and one new participant. During our testing sessions, we aimed to see if our participants could successfully navigate the prototype. Our questions were based on initial impressions of each feature/app, what they liked/disliked, and how they would interact with it. We also began prototyping our wireframe in Figma, so I prototyped the music player since I had worked on its wireframe.

Week 2 Key Insights:

SPRINT 2, DESIGN WEEK 0

Refining Our Problem Statement

With the start of Sprint 2, we held a similar approach to Sprint 1, but with the intention of having a fully designed touchscreen desk by the conclusion of the sprint. In Design Week 0, we revisited our product problem statement, proto-personas, and product backlog to revalidate them with our initial research in mind. Revalidation simply means going back to the research done in Sprint 1 and determining whether or not it still holds true.

Our product problem statement largely remained the same, but after learning that our users prioritize workspace customization over apps that would be useful, we decided to focus on refining our desk layout and workspace customization.

Simplifying Our Proto-Personas

When revisiting our proto-personas, I proposed that we tentatively remove John the Office Worker and re-evaluate him at the end of the sprint. Since we had not interviewed any office workers yet, we therefore did not understand their needs. For Katie the Student, we changed her to Kyle the Student as this was a more accurate representation of the individuals we interviewed. We also changed Kyle's obstacles and desires to reflect his desire for productive study sessions, which is hindered by his small, somewhat cluttered workspace. For our remote worker, Samantha, we adjusted her needs to center around a customized workspace that allows her to communicate with her co-workers.

SPRINT 2, WEEK 2

Finalizing Our Design & Revisiting Our Proto-Personas

For the last sprint week, we prototyped our fully-realized low-fidelity wireframes in Figma and verified that we had a cohesive visual design. I designed Spotify, the calendar, and Microsoft Teams.

Before moving onto the prototype, we revisited our proto-personas once more to which they simply became our final personas. These final personas included Kyle the Student and Samantha the Office Worker. At this point, although John the Office Worker would have been a valuable persona, we did not have the opportunity to interview any office workers, and therefore did not have sufficient research to design for their needs. 

One Last Round of Usability Testing

We completed our last round of usability testing with our high-fidelity prototype. In this session, we interviewed two new users-- one was a YouTuber and the other was a math teacher. The math teacher described herself as a very hands-on individual, so the desk might not be useful for similar professions. As far as improvements to make, users wished the apps were slightly bigger and wanted the ability to resize and move them around. Compared to our previous design, users believed that this version of the desk would enhance their productivity the most.

Final Design

Apps That Enhance Productivity

We wanted to make sure that the apps we included enhanced productivity and not detract from it. In our first sprint, we focused on researching apps that users would prefer the most, which included a calendar, Microsoft Teams, reminders, notes, and a stopwatch.