User Research and Design Studio
Conduct user research and a design studio for TillerXR to prioritize key features and enhance competitiveness in the virtual tour software market
đź“Ś Project scope
- Timeframe: 16 Weeks
- My Role: UX Researcher and Facilitator
- Methods: User Interviews, Competitor Analysis, Feature Analysis, Likes and Dislikes Comparison, Heuristic Evaluations, Empathy Mapping, Persona Development, Design Thinking Workshop, User Journey Mapping, HMW (How Might We) Statements, Big Idea Vignettes, Feature Prioritization.
- Tools: Miro, Zoom, Figma
Project Overview
Introduction
TillerXR, a virtual tour company, aimed to transition from offering services only to developing its own virtual tour creation software.
This project was focused on gaining user insights to ensure TillerXR's software became a competitive leader in the virtual tour market by delivering a user-friendly, high-quality tool.
Problem
Creating virtual tours can be complex and time-consuming, with existing software often complicating the process through clunky interfaces and slow workflows. TillerXR sought to address these challenges by simplifying the user experience and prioritizing essential features users need.
goals
- Prioritize key features that improve ease of use and speed up virtual tour creation.
- Gain a competitive edge by simplifying the workflow and making virtual tours accessible to a wider audience.
- Ensure that TillerXR’s new software aligns with the needs of both current and potential users.
Research
The research phase involved a combination of user interviews, competitor analysis, and a survey to gather comprehensive insights into the current user experience and identify key areas for improvement
Competitor Feature Analysis
A detailed competitor analysis was conducted to understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing solutions.
Key Insights from Feature Analysis
- Many competitors had an online community via social groups, forums, or interactive community galleries.
- None of the software companies offered an automated way to help users build their tours, making the process more time-consuming and complex.
- .Some of the competitors offered ways to create a custom and reusable style for tour elements that could help save time for large tours and be reused across tours.
Competitor Feature Analysis
A detailed competitor analysis was conducted to understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing solutions.
Key Insights from Feature Analysis
- None of the competitors offered an automated feature for creating the tour, making the burden of setting a north point and connecting panos a tedious and long process.
- Many competitors did not offer a camera rental service, which could be a significant barrier for new users who do not own a 360 camera.
- Most of the software solutions had a complex interface that was overloaded and cluttered.
Likes and Dislikes comparison
User reviews and comments from various platforms, such as Capterra, G2, Trust Radius, Reddit, and Facebook groups, were collected and compiled to understand where competitors excel and fall short of their users' needs and expectations. Â
Key Insights from Likes and Dislikes comparison
- User-friendly interface and Support matter
- Many users mention the learning curve as a pain point
- Users like having a strong online community
- Customization of Virtual Tours is highly important
User Research
To gain deeper insights into the pain points of virtual tour creators and understand how they integrate software into their workflows, I conducted user interviews and gathered responses through a survey.
‍User Interviews
Methods:
- Created a screener for virtual tour creators as a main profession or as side income and hobby
- Discussion guide created to capture insights about the typical virtual tour building journey and client handoff
- Scheduling and coordination with users and interviews via zoom and calendy
Insights from expert freelancers:
- More features in the software can be a selling point for freelancers to attract potential clients.
- More experienced users liked to use a DSLR camera and stitch their own pano images for higher customization.
- Automatic Northpoint set with GPS data could save a lot of time in making a virtual tour.
Insights from new virtual tour creators:
- Single tour builders are less concerned with online communities and prioritize ease of use.
- Beginners find the initial creation process intimidating but learn quickly.
- Having a simple 360-degree camera is key to capturing the images for their tours. However, they can be very expensive, so renting is a nice option.
Surveys
I conducted a survey of over 40 virtual tour creators to identify common workflows, tool preferences, and satisfaction levels. Key findings highlighted frustrations with inefficient thumbnail navigation and slow upload speeds.
Sample Responses to “What is the most time-consuming part of building a 360 Virtual Tour?”:
- Stitching Panos
- Finding the right sequence
- Starting a new software
- Shooting all the shots for the tour
Key Insights:
- Most users said creating Virtual Tours was a service they provided in addition to various marketing services and not their primary job
- A lot of users were from around the world, and English was not their first language.
- Key pain points include slow upload speeds, inefficient thumbnails for connecting panos, and a steep learning curve. The most time-consuming tasks identified were editing, connecting panos, and positioning elements on multiple screen sizes.
Analysis and Synthesis
Gathering all of the data I had collected from reviews, competitive analysis, user interviews, and the survey I then analyzed and synthesized the data to prepare user personas and a User Journey Map.
‍Key Findings:
Top 4 Pain points:
- Steep Learning curve
- Complex Pano Connecting
- Hard-to-use interface
- Tedious editing process
Personas
Using I ran grouped like themes together to generate 3 user personas to highlight the different types of users:
Novice Nellie (Marketing Professional)Freelance Frank (Freelancer Entrepreneur)Small Business Sammy (Small Business Owner)
User Journey Map
I created a user journey map to use with our team during a design thinking workshop for TillerXR. The map helped us analyze touchpoints, define user pain points, and prioritize design solutions.
Key Insights
- Discoverability and research for prospective novice users could be intimidating, as they may be faced with a lot of esoteric information and features that may not be important to them.
- This map made me wonder how easily users could update their virtual tours if they needed to capture and upload a new pano for a particular space in their tour.
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Design Studio Workshop
The Design Thinking Workshop I led aimed to collaborate with TillerXR's stakeholders and developers to uncover insights and opportunities, build a product backlog, and define the software's future direction.
Main Objective
‍To enhance TillerXR's virtual tour creation software by addressing user pain points and improving usability.
‍Platform
‍Online FigJam board, Zoom.
Participants:
- 1 UX Researcher and Designer
- 4 Key stakeholders and developers
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‍Workshop Activities:
- Created workshop materials (empathy maps, user journey map, prioritization grid)
- Presented an executive summary of the research
- Facilitated discussions to prioritize features and define project scope
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Hopes and Fears
To kick off the workshop, we started by mapping our team’s Hopes and Fears as an icebreaker. This was helpful for airing out any concerns about our workshop and aligning everyone’s goals and expectations better.
To get the collaboration juices going, we then grouped our hopes and fears into themes and discussed them:
- Prioritized Feature Set
- Project Scope concerns
- Alignment and Future Direction
- Explore new opportunities
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Persona Considerations
Focused on "Novice Nellie," a new user who feels anxious about creating virtual tours. The workshop aimed to address her needs, lower the learning curve, and improve user usability.
Empathy Map
The participants and I collaborated to create an empathy map to get our team to think and empathize with Nellie. This exercise allowed us to think deeply about Nellie's concerns and pain points. Once we finished our Empathy map, we grouped similar stick notes and discussed insights.
Key Insights:
- New users' confusion over virtual tour concepts
- Reluctance to purchase 360 cameras for single projects
- Frustration with the software's complexity
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Journey Map
Moving forward, we used the Journey Map to go through each touchpoint to generate pain points, opportunities, and big-idea design solutions. This journey map helped us dive deeper into understanding Nellie and her needs and figure out ways to solve them.
Dot Voting:
After completing each row, we did a round of dot voting, where everyone independently voted across the row on their top 10 choices to help us narrow down and focus on the various ideas generated for pain points and then again for big-idea design solutions.
Based on our Opportunities HMW Statements, our team generated big idea design solutions for each of them, generating over 80 design solutions.
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Prioritization Grid
To prioritize features to focus on, we all discuss the impact on users and feasibility to help prioritize what TillerXR should focus on. We then dot-voted independently to avoid bias and then collaborated and discussed the placement of the selected big ideas on our prioritization grid.
(Due to the priportary nature of these design solutions their contents and insights have been redacted)
Workshop Impact
This exercise allowed our team to find a focus on features to target that help solve big pain points for novice Nellie. This allowed us to make a product backlog with TillerXR’s developers, in addition to creating an aligned shared future vision for TillerXR's work towards not only their software but also for their marketing and website initiatives.
Conclusion
The UX research and design thinking workshop provided valuable insights that will guide TillerXR in developing a more user-friendly and feature-rich virtual tour creation software. By focusing on user needs and pain points, TillerXR can enhance its product and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
The Design Thinking Workshop I led aimed to collaborate with TillerXR's stakeholders and developers to uncover insights and opportunities, build a product backlog, and define the software's future direction.
Future Directions
Based on the insights gathered from the research and workshop, the next steps for TillerXR include:
- Implementing prioritized features to improve user experience
- Enhancing onboarding support and tutorials
- Continuously engaging with the user community for feedback and improvements
- Conduct more in-depth research with users and conduct usability tests to help identify issues is competitors software
