Bridgit
Alpha & Beyond
Understand & Plan
Design Role
Understand & Plan
- SOW & KPIs
- Requirements & Constraints
- Assumption
- Research Strategy & Plan
Listen & Research
- User Survey & Interviews
- Competitive & Comparative Analyses
- Heuristic Evaluations
- User & Job Stories
Synthesize & Prioritize
- Empathy Maps
- User Needs Analysis
- Personas
- User Journey
- Prioritization Matrices
Inspiration & Ideation
- Sketching
- Storyboarding
- Wireframes
- User Flow
- On Boarding
Design & Play
- LoFi & HiFi Prototypes
- Conceptual Design
- Rapid Prototyping
- Visual Mockups
- Style-guide
Test & Discover
- Usability Testing
- Card Sorting
- A/B Testing
- Multivariate testing
Iterations
Listen & Research
Global Research & Interviews
We didn't waste time diving right in, to work with our users. Were worked thoroughly implementing extensive user interviews, user testing and researching in the US, Europe and Asia, to get diverse views of users pain points, input for possibilities and a comprehensive user-centered design
Want to see the data for yourself? Go to the hyperlinked below for the user research data:
* Screener Responses
* Survey Responses
* Interview Data Synthesized Into Personas
In doing research for competitive analysis we found that currently there aren’t any direct competitors with Bridgit. However, we did find some with similar functions to base the competitive analysis on.
Competitive Analysis
Hypothes.is
Hypothes.is is an extension that provides annotation functionality of websites. This ability to manipulate the web with annotations on any given website makes Hypothesis the most similar functioning product to date.
Youtube, & Vimeo
KEY FINDINGS
Side Panel design allows the user to invoke the tool at optimal times.
Filled in Extension icon when in useYou can take notes with this tool as well.
KEY FINDINGS
All Three services have a thumbnail when hovering over the navigation bar. This could be useful for saving and building bridges.
KEY FINDINGS
Great tools for following influencers and pinning content.
Fantastic way of organizing ideas and showcasing how users could interact with content on the dashboard.
Pinterest houses a lot of amazing ideas that could be used in conjunction for users bridging items. So we really wanted to showcase this.
KEY FINDINGS
All Three services have a thumbnail when hovering over the navigation bar. This could be useful for saving and building bridges.
Comparative Analyses
Because of Brigit’s uniqueness we also produce multiple comparative analyses from several businesses which provided insight to features to design for Bridgit
Usability Testing of Initial Product
As UX designers our primary focus is to understand the user's pains and needs. However, when the user is struggling to understand what the purpose and functionality of Bridget was, then that's the first problem we have to tackle.
"Bridgit is such a pain in the ass to use let alone understand its purpose. What's the point of it and what's with the big popup in the middle of the screen? Really?"
` Angel
Findings
- Mostly people wanted ways to connect and store their research content and access the information easily later on.
- We asked what problems they were facing with Bridgit in its Alpha stage. The pop ups were annoying to users. This was due to Bridgit’s development/design being centered on a modal interface with pop ups.
- We gave user tasks with Bridgit and observed them struggling and feeling discouraged with the process and the UI.
- We realized that all users were having a huge problem with understanding the concept of Bridgit. Although onboarding was a stretch goal, it was a vital asset and became a primary goal.
- Being that our primary goal was to implement video. When asked about using/implementing Videos with Bridgit, their concerns were visual overload, And the legality of using membership educational platforms with in a bridge.
- In the first interviews every user was confused about the purpose of Bridgit. One reason was the verbiage that was handed down to us by the company. "It was way out there" When users first tried Bridgit they struggled and were even more confused. "They hated it!"
Synthesize & Prioritize
In this phase the users' experiences, actions, and mindsets are mapped out to bring to life the users' goals, define problems and formulate & forge solutions.
User Syntheses
We also compiled all the user data into personas and (frameworks) that helped us understand and visualized the process ahead.
Difficulties with Product
Unsure of how to interact with the product or its purpose
Iteration
On-boarding was developed to show the value in bridging and how to navigate the tool efficiently.
Difficulties with UI blocked
users view of page content and no password recovery
Iteration
UI into a side panel, improving user engagement with clear affordances and provided password recovery
Our goal now was to improve the experience so users could have a better understanding and be able to get the results they wanted from the moment they accessed Bridgit.
Personas
Primary Persona: Sally "The Skill Seeker"
"I hate to skip around a video I've already watched to the part most useful to me. In addition, I use 4-5 different platforms."
Problem Spotting and Solving
User Pains With Bridgit
Menu constantly pops up over content where the mouse pointer and is interrupting the user's experience/flow. The modal also pops up in the middle of the screen making it impossible to refer to the site content .
Users are confused about the process and need guidance.
New Solutions
Designed the UI for Bridget in a side panel giving user full access of page content at all times. It relieved frustration and provided fluidity in viewing and selecting content especially with selecting video segments .
I built onboarding showing how to use Bridgit and provide quick access to it for review.
Creating an Improved User Journey
Through implementing all the useful data from the users, I put together a visual roadmap that would create a seamless experience for the users.
Inspiration & Ideation
Time to play with the muses to ideate efficient, and effective solutions.
Initial Sketches of UI/UX
Just like any design process there are widening stages and there are narrowing stages. You must iterate! We started with big ideas since this was a big topic to take on. We imagined a system for organizing content as simple as dragging and dropping into buckets.
Test & Discover
Listening to our users resulted in creating the best solutions
Findings
- Mostly people wanted ways to connect and store their research content and access the information easily later on.
- We asked what problems they were facing with Bridgit in its Alpha stage. "The pop ups were annoying". This was due to Bridgit’s design being centered on a modal interface with pop ups.
- We gave user tasks with Bridgit and observed them struggling and feeling discouraged with the process and the UI.
- We realized that all users were having a huge problem with understanding the concept of Bridgit. Although onboarding was a stretch goal, it was a vital asset and became a primary goal.
- Being that our primary goal was to implement video. When asked about using/implementing Videos with bridgit, their concerns were visual overload, And the legality of using membership educational platforms with in a bridge
Design & More Playing with Muses
Implement MVPs from sketches and wireframes into low, medium and high fidelity prototypes at multiple stages to get perspective from user testing.
Re-strategizing
We realized that the vast majority of our users were having a problem understanding the product, so we escalated the onboarding from a stretch goal to a primary goal. Seeing how vital it would be I quickly took on the full task of designing the onboarding feature.
I began with ideating and building a storyboard to ensure that every detail of the onboarding was covered. Then followed with user tests to ensure the users were able to follow along and grasp the concept.
Iterations
After 5 iterations, feedback from users determined that the interface needed to be more intuitive.
Users were now having a change of heart and getting excited about Brigit's possibilities.
Refine and Repeat
Feedback from testing is what drives the iterative process.
More Iterations
We worked diligently with the users to solve all the problems they confronted. By providing them with User Tasks and closely listening and observing we could pinpoint and work work out all the fine details/problems.
"I hated Bridgit before. Now it's so easy to use. I'll do research with it all the time. I'll also be telling my friends about it."
~ Daniel
Solutions
- We created an intuitive UI that users could easily interact with
- We built the UI overlay as a side-panel that gave full access to the browsers content
- We provide signifiers so users could work effortlessly
- We designed an onboarding experiences that users can access throughout
Conclusion
As the lead designer of this team, I learned how to assign tasks, how to manage time, how to make quick and effective decisions and how to make the best out of team collaboration. We managed to synthesize a good amount of data and designed 3 different flows in a style consistent with the original application.
As a team we worked diligently in pairing up Brigit's vision with the users needs and experience.
All of the research, user testing and iterations we did locally and remotely in 5 other countries, immensely helped to make Brigit more productive while improving the ease of use and intuitive user experience.
