Redesigning a feature in Microsoft Teams part 2: User Research
After familiarising ourselves with the Microsoft Teams app, we began to conduct more in-depth research to build empathy with the users. To do this, we conducted interviews, online reviews, task analysis and competitor analysis. We summarised each user with proto-personas, and performed user experience mapping to identify pain points, frustrations and opportunities for improvement.
User Research
“In user-centred design, designers use a mixture of investigative methods and tools (e.g., surveys and interviews) and generative ones (e.g., brainstorming) to develop an understanding of user needs.”— (The Interaction Design Foundation, 2020)
Initially we used investigative research methods, interviewing users and studying online reviews. As the project went on, due to our limited access to users, we used more generative techniques, such as personas and experience mapping.
Interviews and Online reviews
We interviewed family and friends who had used Microsoft Teams and discovered that new users found the app difficult and unintuitive to use.
“It’s not very self-explanatory, you really have to go looking whenever you need to do something” — Extract from interview with Microsoft teams user
Microsoft Teams’ online reviews revealed an abundance of queries and complaints regarding scheduling meetings, app notifications, and level of support offered within the app. To illustrate this, here are some critical extracts from Microsoft Teams’ user reviews found online:
“The mobile app is awesome but could not find any meeting invite option…”
“I just wish there was an auto email invite when you schedule a meeting, so it gets booked in everyone’s calendar.”
“…Could use some improvements such as tips to help with issues.”
Based on our research, we identified two key issues:
- Using the Help feature to complete a task.
- Scheduling meetings with both external and internal contacts.
We chose to concentrate on Help as it came up as problematic in both our heuristic analysis and user research.
Usability testing
We each ran usability tests on the current app to understand what difficulties users experienced. We asked our participants to use Help to find out how to hand in an assignment.
Findings:
- Users grew frustrated and struggled to locate Help.
- Users resented having to visit an external website to access Help.
- Finding a relevant article was difficult, as many search results were not relevant to Microsoft Teams.
- Users found it laborious to return to their task in Teams after accessing Help.
Task Analysis
We used a task flow analysis to understand how a user may perform a task, breaking down Help into a series of steps, allowing us to identify where to make improvements.
Currently, Help is within Settings, within the hamburger menu, visible only on top-level screens. This makes it impossible to get assistance without exiting a task. We proposed that Help should be available on any screen. Users experienced difficulty finding relevant articles and often made errors, such as reading articles written for other apps such as Microsoft Powerpoint.
Competitor analysis
We investigated into competitors apps to define standards and user expectations. Help within Skype was easy to find and convenient to use, featuring a chatbot and articles within the app.
Personas
“Personas provide meaningful archetypes which you can use to assess your design development against.”— (Dam, R., & Siang, T. Personas, 2020)
We each developed two proto-personas (see appendix). Our persona’s included user goals, needs, motivations, pain-points, confidence using technology, and experience using Microsoft Teams. The personas embodied our research and sustained our empathy for the user. We refined our individual personas into two final personas representing two novice Microsoft Teams users of varying computer literacy.
- Jack, The student who had recently begun using Microsoft Teams in school.
- Jane, The professor that recently begun using Microsoft Teams to teach her class remotely.
Use case scenarios
“…a scenario says, ‘Imagine if we had the magic new product or the improved functionality. Here’s how that would unfold.’ That starts to imply a whole host of requirements.” — (Goodwin, K., 2009)
We created scenarios in which our personas used Help, revealing how, when, and where people use the app. This provided context and requirements for our design. We used user experience maps to identify pain points, frustrations and opportunities for improvement.
References:
The Interaction Design Foundation. (n.d.). What is User Centered Design? [online] Available at: http://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/user-centered-design [Accessed 7 Nov. 2020].
Dam, R. and Teo Siang (2019). Personas — A Simple Introduction. [online] The Interaction Design Foundation. Available at: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/personas-why-and-how-you-should-use-them.
Goodwin, K. (2009). Designing for the digital age : how to create human-centered products and services. Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley Pub.
Appendix:
Online reviews:
Individual user personas:
