I had just completed a huge part of my UX springboard program where I had been given the opportunity to work with Bernard Gabriel, another UX designer also enrolled in the program likewise. Our goal was to solve a real world problem for a client.
In the past decade, we’ve seen a massive shift from traditional print and billboard marketing to the ever present digital and online advertising. Within just the past few years, we have either become desensitized or less influenced by these digital efforts.
Zigcast is a start-up digital signage company that seeks to empower individuals and businesses to reach and retain audiences in physical spaces with its modernized form of traditional marketing.
Small businesses believe that the investment in advertising is often seen as an expense as opposed to way of generating revenue. Business owners with superior qualifications tend to believe less in the effectiveness of advertising. These owners lack the knowledge and skills to apply and trust digital marketing strategies.
We sent out a survey/screener to at least 30 people via email and received a total of 18 responses. From the responses received, we went ahead to have virtual interviews for 5 out of the 18 participants that had responded. We gathered enough information to know we were looking for individuals that are aged 20-55 years old that had considered using or supporting a marketing strategy. These individuals were more likely than often to be college students, marketing professionals, or business owners. We expected these group to be tech savvy with an awareness of digital marketing services.
We thought about the product and how it would fit into today's world and market. We wanted it to have a compelling competitive advantage over others in the marketplace. We looked for applications that could have similar functions and looked at the UI screens of the Uber, Yelp and Instacart application and measured consistency standards as it is safe to assume people use other digital products than yours.
We looked at Optisigns, Zigcasts's direct competition. Zigcast currently worked this way; a user would log in, upload a picture and set a timed advertisement remotely so it appears on the Kiosk screens in any stores placed.
Optisign on the other hand, had way more functionalities. You could pick from a variety of templates and pick from an array of multiple screen sizes. You also had the option to upload directly to a kiosk. Optisign had features that we would expect of Zigcast 3 years into the future. We also wanted to design for visibility of system and status to show confirmation that an action that has just taken place.
We had another interview that was performed remotely with a total of 5 participants to test the initial product. We wanted ZigCast users to accomplish the following goals with the current application. We created mock credentials to enable users have access to all features.
We gave a scenario which included the set of tasks mentioned and observed how the users interacted with the application to help with their own marketing efforts.
The video below show what a user flow looks like when a user sets up an ad to be promoted in a restaurant on 4 different weekdays on the week of April 18 during the hours of 6pm and 9pm.
After testing, we understood the following
The video below show what a user flow looks like when a user searches for a specific kiosk location in Orlando, Florida and sets up another ad to be promoted on 2 different weekdays on the week of April 18 during the late hours of 9pm and 11pm.
We wrote down key quotes from the interview sessions we had which helped in creating a mental model of what the users concerns were about. This was by far the most challenging part. We had limited time to make a proper analysis and come to firm conclusions regarding the persona information we had.
We had grouped the quotes we got form interviews into affinity maps and the biggest concern was performance data tracking, with every user making it as a major complaint. One of the biggest barriers to advertising in physical spaces was figuring out how to keep track of its performance and the fairness in cost.
After evaluating the initial interviews we initially ended up creating one empathy map with would match with one persona. We backtracked on our decisions to make sure we were not being biased in our understanding of the users. Real world apps would encounter multiple variation of users. Our bias was mainly because we focused on interviewing people with experience in advertising and media but what if they had none at all ?
This led us to create two different empathy maps and personas which articulated what we understood from the users to prioritize their needs.
Based on the interviews/workshop we set up two personas. We referred to them throughout the entire product development process.
We were able to have a general understanding of the users and their overall relationship with the current application from the insights we had gathered.
Red routes were sketched as a first step in visualizing a digital solution. The sketches show an onboarding process because the interviewees were confused on what the application does. It also shows a system in which data is collected from an advertising campaign and shown to the user.
After reviewing other competition, it made sense to have an option to create a design from in-app templates as well as also having option to use google maps for navigation.
We created an MVP with the user flow focusing only in the main tasks the user would have to achieve.
The user flow shows the path the user takes from the sign up process to the creation of an advertising campaign
We focused on prioritizing the most important actions the user is likely to carry out. We designed a seamless navigation system for the user to conveniently switch screens/pages.
We created the wireframes and we tested specific user flows. We created "Campaign Mode", an efficient way of linking the process of creating an ad and advertising it in a kiosk location. We wanted the users to be able to have a location filter which enables the users to filter their choices. We also added an option of advertising in one or multiple locations. Another important user flow was a feature which allowed the user to create designs on the application to compete with industry standards set by big brands like Optisign.
While recreating a new design system, we maintained the brand's colour scheme and added a blue accent to complement the brand's colours. We complemented colour with the Proxima Sans font which is typically used in digital interfaces.
As mentioned earlier, the timeframe for this project was about 5 weeks and we had about 1 week left to get something out. We created a survey included with a list of tasks we wanted the user to complete. We wanted to carry out 2 different interview sessions. An interview session would be conducted remotely with 5 different participants individually. We wanted these sessions with 10 different participants. The problem was that we only had time to squeeze these sessions in
We wanted each users do this:
The current application's sign-up process failed to give users an understanding of what the application was all about. The sign up process was completed quickly and onboarding information seemed clear to each participant.
The home screen showed the dashboard and it was received well. Users understood that the empty state and empty data points were intended for account wide summary. Users understood found some of the new improved UI features integrated into the process of posting an ad confusing such as it wasn't clear where to post an ad for some.
Kiosk location selection process was intuitive and easily understood by users. Time slots were interpreted differently to the users from how we originally assumed.
The campaign acted as a checklist for the users to enable them complete and commit to the task. Campaign overview slider wasn't immediately clear to users - adding a title or header could solve it. A need to reorganize the slider so information breakdown is accessible in a compact way.
Due to the duration of the time period, we weren't able to complete the project. We took in key learnings from testing the application with users although we were not given the chance to provide further solutions due to external factors beyond our control. Overall, I had so much fun working on this project with Bernard, my Team member and I had the opportunity to learn so much about the marketing and advertising space.
