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Brief
A gesture-UI-driven speaker system designed to work with Spotify at home.
Duration
2 weeks
Class
Experience - Aynne Valencia
Teammate
Sarah Huo
Keywords
Home Entertainment,
Natural User Interface,
Rapid Prototyping, Agile Design Methods
Secondary Research
Due to unprecedented events taking place around the world, a lot of us may be finding ourselves staying home more than usual these days. The growth of working from home has produced permanent changes in the ways we use our time. And we’ll be needing things to watch, listen, read and do when we’re done working.
Use of Technology
During the past decade, companies from different industries have been studying NUI (Nature User Interface) to achieve a more natural and immersive interactive experience.
For example, BMW, Microsoft, and Sony are all researching and implementing gesture control to reinforce the experience of their entertainment products.
Gesture control applications can be used at home, like home control terminals or simply a piece of furniture.
Competitive Landscape (Gesture Controlled Speaker)
Shorter Learning Curve
Bastron
Osound
Less Function
SONY LF S50G
More Function
SONY Onebox
Longer Learning Curve
Observation & Potential Pain Points
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Latency & feedback
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User onboarding & education
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Comfortableness
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Interaction Zone
Challenges
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There are no established standards.
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It’s easy to fall prey to the trap of “default thinking”.
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It’s vital to understand what types of gestures to support and how to introduce them properly.
User Research
User Interview
We interviewed people who use wireless speakers for Music Streaming Apps. Interviewees were made sure to be regular users of Spotify through screening questions.
Together we talked about 15 minutes with each participant, uncovering little bits of information about who they are and what their experiences are like of using Spotify and their speakers.
Below are the synthesized results (The more dots means more participants share the same behavior).
Interview Summary
Users care about
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Quick and easy way to search for music
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A huge library of musical content
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Easy socialization with people outside the app
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High-quality sound
Users get upset about
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Intrusive Advertisement with a free account
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Undesirable music feed
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Unsmooth experience connecting with wireless devices
Users are motivated by
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Weekly/Daily Mix
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Curated / personalized playlists
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New music right up to their taste
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Music shared among friends
Users use the speakers while
User Types
We categorized them into three types of users based on their purpose.
The Seeker
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Want a steady stream of good music recommendation.
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Daily Mix satisfies as long as they don’t repeat too much
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Rely on Spotify for new music discovery
The Heavy Rotator
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Dedicated to their favorite bands.
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Maintain a selected library.
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Use Spotify to cue up the latest releases.
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Concerned about sound quality.
The Casual
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Enjoy different genres of music in different scenarios
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Often play what the system suggests
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Won't bother to build their playlists
Current User Journey Map (Non-Gesture-Controlled Speaker)
Concluding from their story and our own experience, we made this journey map to help inform our persona and product space.
Persona
The journey map helps us organize thoughts and patterns uncovered from our interviews into the creation of our user persona. This persona represents the target needs and aspirations of our user.
Design Opportunities
& Concepts
In order to turn our findings into actionable statements, we used a technique called How Might We statements. This allowed conversations around our problem statement, enabling rapid brainstorming sessions to generate as many ideas as possible.
Once we had about 20-30 HMW statements, we narrowed down the top four.
Final Concept（For User Testing）
Revised Storyboard
Problem Statement
- How might we provide users with a simple
and smooth sound experience that requires minimum attention?
- We do it by removing the disruption of having to physically interact with a touch screen or be in front of the device.
Target User
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Music lovers who enjoy music surroundings at home.
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Use speakers to listen to music at home
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Use a specific type of music streaming app
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Live alone or with roommates
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Aged between 24 and 34
Scenario
When they are occupied with primary tasks, for example cooking, working or exercising
Painpoints
Users get upset about
1. Unreliable discover feature
2. Having to interrupt their current activity to make adjustments
3. Unfriendly or delayed feedback
So they cannot focus on their primary task or build highly personalized playlists, and have bad experience using the speaker with Spotify.
Goal
To provide users with a simple and smooth music experience that requires minimum attention
Solution
A speaker that can
1. Be operated anywhere without direct contact
2. Help users quickly "like" or "dislike" songs in the playlist
3. Remember playlists for different usage scenarios
4. Provide instant feedback without interrupting the music flow
Concept Test
Low-Fidelity Prototype
As this phase, we used the gesture guide of competitor products as reference and made sure they are borrowed from real life and feel natural.
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Take off the sensor patch
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Stick the patch onto any surface
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Basic Controls
(Play/Pause, Switch Song, Adjust Volume)
Personal Preference Controls
(Not interested, Like)
Gesture Guide V1
Concept Test
We showed the video to participants, walk them through our concepts and asked about their thoughts. Then the users were asked to make corresponding gestures by looking at the guide (without oral prompts) and scored each gesture in terms of learnability and intuitiveness (From 1 to 5).
Test Result
While these results are disappointing, in that this concept has not been positively endorsed by the participants, neither has it been rejected.
Our hypothesis was that the video failed to show the value of this solution to full potential, considering that the prototype was not realistic and we didn’t put the users in that context. And we needed to iterate and test more to improve our gesture set.
Gesture Iterations
Evaluation
When developing NUI, user testing takes a primary role. What is natural for one person, may be strange for another. Upon testing, the most natural option is the one that is preferred by the most amount of people that took part in testing.
After the first round of testing, we decided to take a step back and evaluate gestures with the four metrics below.
(Reliability refers to the likeliness of the hand tracking device correctly interpreting the gesture. Comfort refers to how physically difficult a gesture is to perform. )
The raw data was bias because our sample wasn't including people with certain diseases or disability, for whom some gestures that involve rotating the wrist and finger poses can be hard to perform. So we down-graded these gestures based on existing study result.
Test Round 2
We tested with a different group of participants here, and the scores are relatively higher than in the first round.
Gesture Guide Iterations
Final Gesture Guide
Mobile Touchpoint
Redesigned Spotify Flow
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Add-on Device tab in Spotify enables user to manage playlists and preferences for the speaker
Assign playlists to patches and store songs for different usage scenarios.
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Users can easily access their favorite songs and personalized recommendations
A digital gesture guide to get users familiar with operations.
Visual Language
Brand Personality
Quiet Stable Sustainable
Final Prototype
Gesture Control
Want to control volume, pause or save music without being vocal or soiling the speaker? Just wave you hand over the top - no contact required.
Sensor Patches
Users can place the sensor patch anywhere in the home, such as desktop, walls, bathroom etc.
The four sensor patches have long battery life. Before you go to bed, you can put the sensor patch back on the backplate for re-charging.
Main Speaker
Magnetic Backplate
Press once to turn on the speaker
The light ring is on
When connecting Bluetooth
The light ring continuously blinks
When successfully connected
The light ring is off, sound is on
Power Button
Visual Feedback
Breathing light rings on the sensor patches provides feedback without disturbing their music stream when user gives an order. The lighting effect applies to actions and states that do not have sound feedback (“like” ,“no interest” and everytime the speaker is turned on).
"Like" & "Not Interested"
The light ring blinks twice
"Play" & "Pause"
The ring gradually lights up or goes out
Running out of Battery
The light ring blinks in red
Breathing Light Ring
Anticipated Experience Map
