Digital prototyping workshop at the 2019 UXLibs conference

At the 2019 User Experience in Libraries (UXLibs) conference, themed from research to design, I led a digital prototyping workshop. The case for my workshop was to design an improved mobile experience of reserving a group study room. The aims were to empower participants with skills and confidence to:

  • build interactive digital prototypes quickly and easily from low fidelity paper sketches
  • test prototypes with users to gather feedback, iterate and implement improvements to digital experiences
Slide deck used in the workshop

Idea seed

The idea to improve the experience of reserving a group study room stemmed from seeing QR codes on kiosks at Monash University Library. Scanning a QR code to reserve a room in the library leads to disappointment. SpringShare LibCal has yet to be designed for mobile, and has accessibility and usability issues.

Insights

Group study room reservation software often gives a poor experience for mobile users.

Issues that are apparent when looking at LibCal on a mobile:

  • Unavailable slots are shown. Users can’t reserve these!
  • The first 17 rooms are visible but scrolling moves the date time headers off-screen.
  • The capacity of each room is truncated from display – it’s impossible to choose a big enough room.
A simulation of the LibCal interface shows insignificant difference between colours used to indicate available, your booking, and unavailable cells.
The Color Blind Simulator shows what someone with Deuteranopia (1% of males) might see.

In addition, the colour difference between available and unavailable options lack contrast. People with red-green colour blindness or other colour vision impairments, may find it impossible to distinguish options.

Stories

A job story aims to supersede user stories by replacing assumptions with context.

Unlike user stories, a job story adds context (the When _ situation), and focuses on their motivation.

Story #1

When we need to do focus work this weekend
I want to reserve a group study room
so we can collaborate on our group project.

Story #2

When we need to cram for this afternoon’s exam
I want to reserve a group study room
so we can learn together.

Story #3

When our group (7) need to rehearse this evening
I want to reserve a group study room
so we can practice presenting.

Mobile context

Seeing the QR codes on library kiosks, I added further context to each story: that users were using their mobile. Also, from a responsive design perspective, it is logical to start in a mobile context. It is easier to scale up from the narrowest constraint to a wider screen, rather than the other way around.

Problem statement

Framing these insights and contextual stories as a problem statement:

Mobile users struggle to find an available group study room in their desired time-frame.

How might we …

Then I used the following “How might we …” statement to generate an idea.

How might we make it easier for mobile users to reserve an available group study room in their desired time-frame?

Idea generation shortcut for a 1-hour workshop

I had to come up with shortcuts that would maximise participants’ time to focus on new skills. One shortcut I used was to skip idea generation, and provide a single, ready-made concept instead. This went better in the second running of the workshop, where I explained we lacked time to do both generate ideas and build a prototype. (Sorry this wasn’t clear to participants in the first workshop.)

Forming a concept

From ideas, I formed a conceptual model that might answer this “How might we …” question. To determine whether my hypothesis is valid or invalid, I need a prototype and users to test it. The UXLibs conference was a perfect opportunity to broaden prototyping and testing efforts to a large number of libraries.

Concept to sketch

A successful concept must show relevant reservation options:

  • In the desired time-frame – users already have a time-frame in mind.
  • Only show available options – don’t show options that aren’t available.
  • Show options designed for mobile.
Three mobile interface screens for workshop participants to sketch towards creating their own digital prototype.
In teams of 3, each participant sketched 1 of these mobile interfaces.
  1. Time-frame selection with checkboxes allowing selection of multiple options.
  2. List available times within chosen time-frames. I’ve shown examples with 1-hour duration, 2 hours, and a half-hour – you might choose to use durations based on your business rules. The options also indicate room capacities at those times. Note the default date (Tue 18th) should be the earliest when an available time-slot exists. Also, where there are no available time-slots on a given day (Fri 21st), the day name and date is greyed out. Users can scroll ahead to the following week by using the right > button.
  3. List room capacity options for the selected time. If users select a time that only has a single capacity option, then this screen is skipped.

The concept addresses issues concentrated into 1 screen of LibCal. I used the one thing per page principle to spread the design to 3 screens. As well as being easier to design, one thing per page reduces cognitive load.

Sketching on a mobile template

I could’ve provided handouts with my 3 sketched screens but I feel asking participants to sketch by copying from my example slide worked better. It gave them ownership of the prototype they were about to build. To create 3 sketches for a flow, I organised participants into groups of 3 with only 1 screen for each participant to sketch.

Participants in my digital prototyping workshop begin sketching a screen design on a paper template.
Participants start sketching a screen on a sketch pad template to build their prototype.

Installing the Marvel app

Marvel app is 1 of many prototyping tools you can use to turn low-fidelity sketches into click-through prototypes in minutes. It was selected for the workshop as it has:

  • shallow learning curve
  • mobile apps and a web app for further functionality
  • freemium business model
  • easy to share and test

To help participants install the Marvel app, I showed a slide with separate bit.ly short links and QR codes pointing to Marvel for Android and iOS. Only a few participants managed to scan the QR code, and it was worth having some participants 1 step ahead.

Creating a Marvel project

Once participants had Marvel app installed, they were instructed to open it and:

  1. Create project
  2. Name the project: Test
  3. Choose your device
  4. Add some designs (tap +)
  5. Choose camera to scan your 3 sketches

Scanning the sketches

After scanning sketches, the ability to resize and crop means it doesn’t matter whether each group participant had a different size phone. I showed 0:26 to 0:39 of Paper Prototyping mit Apps to demonstrate the scanning procedure.

Linking screens

Three low fidelity sketches to be linked together to build a digital prototype.
Arrows indicating the flow we’re going to create by linking screens together.

Next, to demonstrate how to link screens into a flow, I showed Paper Prototyping mit Apps 0:39 to 0:54. I listed step by step instructions on the following slide.

Using Marvel app it's easy to convert scanned sketches into a digital prototype by linking screens into a flow.
Step by step instructions for linking screens together to build a prototype.

With screen 1 linked to 2, and 2 to 3, now test it for yourself by pressing the “play” button. Some participants also linked the < Back button from screen 3 to 2.

My digital prototype

My finished prototype below includes 2 additional screens. I added both the step before and after. This gives an idea how the interaction fits into the broader flow. It also makes the prototype feel more real.

Marvel project showing all 5 screens in a broader redesigned interaction flow of reserving an available room.
The 3 designed screens bracketed by a campus selection screen before, and an authentication screen after.

Workshop participants created a single user flow through the reservation task. Using Marvel you can generate a user flow diagram to communicate interaction paths in your prototypes. Although it may be overkill for a single flow path, you may find Userflows handy for more complex digital prototypes.

Userflows diagram illustrating the interaction flow through all 5 screens of reserving an available room.
A user flow diagram generated to illustrate a useful communication artefact to accompany your prototype.

Testing your digital prototype with users

The point of creating a prototype is to test it with users. Thus qualitative, preferably moderated, usability testing will answer questions such as:

  • Can people use the product?
  • What ideas do users have to further improve the interaction?
  • Is the experience with the prototype measurably better than the existing interface and interaction flow? Experience metrics to evaluate and compare could include satisfaction, task success rate, and a System Usability Score (SUS) evaluation.

It’s also possible to A/B test a digital prototype against an alternative design. To avoid bias, match the fidelity of all variations. To see which design works better, A and B variations need to be comparable. For example, if your prototype is freehand paper sketches, then the alternative should also be paper sketches.

Question: digital prototyping fidelity

An excellent question Carl Barrow asked: When/Should we ramp up digital prototyping fidelity – to crisp ruled lines, rounded button corners, etcetera? Low fidelity, rough sketches are excellent for garnering volumes of rich feedback. The opposite is also true. Hence users feel high fidelity prototypes are so polished that there’s little scope left to adjust anything. Use a level of fidelity relative to where your prototyping is in the design process. Invest in low fidelity prototypes early on. If needed, gradually increase fidelity in each iteration of your prototype, and expect more constrained feedback with increased polish.

Iterating to validation

After prototype testing with 3 to 5 users, we learn some answers to our questions around usability issues, and other useful ideas. Incorporate feedback that will lead to a measurably better experience, into a subsequent prototype iteration and testing round. Then repeat iterating and testing your prototype until you have validated findings.

Validation to implementation

Share validated findings with your vendor/system developers. Your goal from here is to have a pilot developed (with real data and user testing) to see if an implementation will thrive in a production environment.

For example, SpringShare are very open to customer feedback, and more likely to develop a pilot for a reconceptualised LibCal when presented with several library’s test results.

While LibCal is popular, it is not the only system for reserving library rooms. Libraries using alternatives to LibCal could also collate valid results, present them to the vendor or in-house development team, and seek development of a pilot.

Wrap up

To sum up, while the case for my workshop was designing an improved mobile experience of reserving a group study room, prototyping and testing can and should be part of your design process. I found preparing for this 1-hour workshop a far greater challenge than preparing for lightning talks. Not only did I have to convey a hypothetical design problem from a digital flow that is relevant to libraries, but also to focus on rapid skill development for parts of the design process that I suspected were absent. I hope attendees are now confident to:

  • build interactive digital prototypes quickly and easily from low fidelity paper sketches
  • test prototypes with users to gather feedback, iterate and implement improvements to digital experiences

Digital prototyping and testing are part of the design process

We can’t afford not to prototype.

Idea sources

Ideas for improving room reservation experiences, digital prototyping and testing came from:

References

Below are links to references cited in the workshop slides:

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