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Unit 14: Evaluation

Reflect on the methods and techniques that are most appropriate for evaluating the performance of your groups implementation and summarize those thoughts in a new post in your process journal. How do you assess the outcome of the various phases of the creative problem solving process that your project has gone through?

Reflecting on my team's CPS process overall, I think we did fairly well for the amount of time we had. The most important technique for assessing the outcome of our implementation is reaching outside of our network of peers to get feedback. We did this a bit for our ideation phase, and we will need to do it again before our final presentation to make necessary improvements to our design. I hope to get both qualitative and quantitative data from this to back up the success (or failure) of our idea.

Besides assessing the success of our end product, our team norms was a great way to assess how our team worked together overall throughout each step of the process. Everyone on the team had a unique perspective that they brought to the table and I think we all felt comfortable voicing our different opinions when we felt that something was off. These conversations generated iteration after iteration that always improved our designs.

I think another important thing to evaluate all of our CPS steps on is our problem statement -- was this a true goal throughout our work, and is that clearly shown? Did we generate a good problem statement in the first place? The problem statement is essentially the backbone of our presentation and will need to shine through in every CPS step if we are going to communicate our idea properly and effectively.

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Unit 13: Implementation, Pt. 2

Time is not on our side for this step of the design process. I certainly felt the time crunch as we near the end of this project and rushed to create higher fidelity mockups for our streaming service. I took on the settings page after we all agreed on the settings we want to include. For this stage, I set aside the numerous feasibility questions I have about implementing all of these settings. I wanted to create a page with clear hierarchy and focus, so I opted to only show settings for one subsection at a time.

The idea is that once someone selects standard layout, they can go back to layout and scroll down to themes. This would collapse layout and only show themes so users are not overwhelmed by the amount of customization options we have. One navigation issue this presents is having to hit left or back before scrolling down to themes. Before our final presentation we definitely have a lot of revisions to make.

The settings page also features focus state/selection hierarchy. Currently, there are selections for settings (icon), style, layout + standard layout. I had to make sure that the selection states didn't clash, but it was very clear where they were on the page and what they were currently selected on. I still think there could be some improvements, but it is a start. For example, I don't think there is enough contrast between the style light grey and settings sidebar dark grey. Contrast is also a setting we let customers control, but it is still good practice to have good contrast to begin with.

After all of us created our designs we came together to make sure we were providing a cohesive experience with branding (mainly colors, typography and styling). It is nice to see how everything is coming together, but we definitely have a long way to go for our final pitch. We certainly need to provide more detail for our business plan and make design decisions super clear as we are marketing this service as a more accessible service.

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Unit 12: Implementation Part 1

Because we are tackling a pretty big project, we felt that the first step of implementation had to be further research into guidelines that others have created before us for accessible TV design. We created a general plan to research best practices, conduct informational interviews, and generate user flows and initial sketches. After, we plan to create mockups and get some eyes for user testing and iteration into the next week.

For the first step, we split up research priorities (TV accessibility and general TV design best practices) and came together to share each of our key findings. After sharing our findings, we created a condensed list of actionable insights that we could use to start with initial sketches.

In addition to outside research, I also took the opportunity to interview my grandpa on his experiences watching Netflix on his TV. He has hearing and vision problems that make watching TV difficult for him. I learned that he struggles to discover features such as closed captioning and the search function. This was such a surprising find, since most digital interfaces are so natural to me that I know what functionality to expect (like search). For my grandpa, he only knows what my parents teach him about the TV. He told me he struggles with any new change in the interface, even if the change is an improvement. Getting an inside look into my grandpa's experience with TV streaming aligned with our research findings and helped me gain even greater empathy for our target customers. It's hard to be a designer since I will always have bias (in this case, I don't have to worry about the speed of subtitles, color contrast, being unfamiliar with digital interfaces, etc.), but it only proves how essential research is in creating inclusive designs.

With our actionable insights, we individually set out to create basic sketches of five screens we thought were the most essential: home page, search, video description, video player, and settings. In the next week we want to create higher-fidelity mockups and start testing our designs.

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Unit 11: Selection

After the ideation phase, we came out with three top ideas: a style guide, AI for accessible features, and a streaming service that consolidates all streaming content into one place.

We employed two main methods to select our final idea: idea potpourri and the Kepner-Tregoe method.

For idea potpourri, we tried out combining a style guide with our streaming service idea. Combined, we would have a minimal "Style guide" in our about page that talks about our design decisions and why they are important for streaming services.

Now that we had four ideas, we used the Kepner-Tregoe method to make our selection. We were initially learning towards the fourth idea, but we wanted to systematically make a selection to ensure we were unbiased. We started by listing objectives:

- make streaming services as accessible as possible

- simplify the streaming experience

- make a happy user experience

- standardize the streaming experience

With these objectives and ideas we created a spreadsheet and ranked each cell 1-10. We then averaged all of our answers and summed each column up to have a score for each idea. Idea 3 (streaming service) ended up with the most points. We felt that this idea was the most surefire way to ensure accessibility standards are met and enforced, simplify and reconcile customer mental models, and overall create a joyful experience.

After narrowing down to this idea, we still felt like we had some reservations. It did not feel like the most feasible idea we had, and we were worried about securing partnerships with streaming services to host content on our own platform. We initially thought we would just redirect users to a streaming service once they have found the video they want to watch, but that prevents us from addressing accessibility issues with playback (e.g. subtitles, audio descriptions).

After discussing with Professor Siegel and filling out the business canvas we were able to address our feasibility concerns and move forward with our idea.

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Unit 10: Ideation

After we refined our problem statement, we began a divergent phase in the design process: ideation. We first generated several prompts and held our first brainstorming session with this prompt:

How might we streamline and simplify the user experience across all streaming platforms?

We set a 15 minute timer and generated ideas on our own (and also bouncing ideas off of each other to create alternatives). A lot of the ideas we generated were secondary ideas (ones that could easily be consolidated into one solution), or a means to get to a solution (a research tactic, for example). During this process, we tried to be as open-minded as possible, without worrying about how wild our ideas were. Some ideas included creating the "best AI algorithm in the world" for recommendations, for example. After finding patterns in all of our ideas and voting on our top few, we transitioned to Miro.

We decided to take a break for the weekend and get our mind elsewhere (this only serves to help the ideation process). During this time off, I was reading a d.school book on ideation and came up with new prompts for our next ideation session (focusing more on the emotions of the customers). Though it wasn't exactly lateral thinking, this moment did confirm the value of taking a break and looking elsewhere.

We met again and brainstormed on a few other prompts to generate some more ideas. After repeating the same process as last time, we voted on our top three ideas and prioritized them on viability/feasibility/desirability graphs. We found it difficult to place our ideas on these graphs because of how many stakeholders are possibly involved: streaming service companies, ourselves, and the customers of streaming service companies.

At the end of this brainstorming process, we came up with three ideas:

Create an app where you search/are recommended shows on any streaming service, and clicking watch brings you to that service. (this incorporates our own good UI system while surpassing the problems in others).

Mockups of an ideal design which functions as a standard for optimized user experience in a streaming service.

Develop an AI that creates and upload subtitles in various languages, audio descriptions, trigger warnings, etc. The accessibility AI.

Two style guides detailing design standards and guidelines for TV and mobile, organized in sections for all major accessibility categories (visual, audio, etc.).

Based on our graphs, we think that the style guide is the most feasible+viable, and eventually desirable -- however, we want to keep these three ideas in mind before we come to a decision.

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Unit 9: Problem Definition

Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group used to define the problem and summarize those activities in a new post in your process journal. How did you come to a consensus on what characteristic of the problem needs to be addressed?

After last class, our group decided to do a second round of morphological analysis. This time, we were each assigned four streaming services and a different device (TV or tablet). For each service and device, we jotted down observations pertaining to navigation, search, accessibility, settings, and more.

I looked at Hulu, Netflix, Disney+ and WOW Presents Plus, and found that they all had different navigation tactics and controls. Some were more intuitive than others. Additionally, they all had some form of close captioning but some lacked audio descriptions and proper trigger warnings. Through further research, I also realized there are a number of other design patterns in streaming services that present "lesser-known" accessibility issues. For example, one survey respondent with chronic migraines noted that the trendy motion interactions used by many streaming services can trigger their migraines. Furthermore, designs between TV and tablet devices were different (though something understandably so because of the different interactions required for each device). Netflix mobile has even introduced a "TikTok-esque" feature called Fast Laughs, where it attempts to copy the scrolling feature popularized by social media apps and use Netflix content as a quick source of entertainment for people to share.

With this first-hand analysis coupled with our research from the previous week, we felt like we had the right pieces to start brainstorming a problem statement.

We employed different techniques like keywords and problem within a problem to synthesize our findings into a cohesive statement. I came up with two initial statements:

In the realm of accessibility, streaming services seem to pay more attention (though not enough) to visual/hearing issues such as subtitles, and ignore less "mainstream" issues, like dizzying motion interactions and lack of trigger warnings, for customers with chronic migraines, low-English-literacy, ADHD, epilepsy, autism (and more).

Inconsistencies across streaming platforms and their various device designs, coupled with accessibility concerns, force users to have several different mental models and make watching a video unnecessarily complex.

After all of us presented our initial problem statements to each other, we highlighted key words again to reveal patterns and differences between our statements. We ultimately ended up combining all of our statements and tried to include objectives to frame negatives in a positive, constructive light:

Inconsistencies across streaming platforms and their various devices, coupled with chaotic design patterns, navigation issues and accessibility concerns, force users to have several different mental models and make watching a video unnecessarily complex. The ideal streaming platform should offer elegant and standardized design patterns while tackling the wide array of usability and accessibility issues that are commonly disregarded, such as dizzying motion interactions, lack of trigger warnings, and support for low-English-literacy, ADHD, epilepsy, autism (and more).

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Unit 8: Analysis

Reflect on the methods and techniques for analysis that you have used this week and summarize those activities in a new post in your process journal. Where have you sought out research material? What kind of interesting things have you discovered? What sort of insights are you able to gather through your research so far? Document your reflections in the process journal.

Our team has used two main methods of research — first-hand and second-hand research. As one does with a topic on streaming services, I enjoyed an old Ghibli movie on HBOMax in the name of ~research~. I paid attention to how I navigated through the platform (desktop website), starting from the landing page, to searching "Nausicaa," to finally locating the movie. While watching the movie, I also paid attention the the available controls. I noticed that there was no "play from the beginning" like Netflix has (only reverse and fast-forward options). I also noticed that I could use my spacebar to pause the movie -- on some streaming platforms (I think disney+ or Hulu?), pressing space takes me out of full screen mode and does not pause the video, which is not an expected interaction for me. In the future, if we decide to continue with this topic, I want to pay more attention to what is shown on the landing page, and how they suggest new content to me.

I also turned to Google to research more specific topics such as designing for accessibility. One article asked its readers to attempt to tab through a streaming platform to see if it is reasonably accessible through that method. That was an interesting exercise, because I was able to put myself in the shoes of someone who relies on this method of navigation. Streaming platforms have a multitude of accessibility issues, with the most common being a lack of (good) subtitles and poor navigation. I found it interesting that another top pain point was inadequate trigger warnings. I noticed Netflix recently started putting trigger warnings at the start of a show, but I never thought deeply about the impact these have on others. I also learned that Netflix has patented a lot of helpful design features, which makes it difficult for other streaming platforms to design equally joyful experiences.

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Unit 8: Acceptance

Consider what it would be like to succeed in overcoming the problem that lays ahead of you. Attempt to get into a positive state of mind by projecting yourself into the mental state you would be in as you joyously celebrate the rewards of your success. Think about the potential benefits that you might accrue if you become involved in this project. Reflect on the subject matter that you and your group have chosen and how accepting the undertaking will benefit you personally.

Currently my team is gravitating towards the topic of on-demand video streaming services (e.g. Netflix). We have also thought about topics such as physical/digital interfaces, and barriers to learning music-generation applications. All of these ideas excite me, and provide the opportunity to learn something new.

All of my team members are interested in UX, so this project is an awesome opportunity to put those skills to the test. It also means I am in the position to introduce my teammates to my own experience in the UX industry (thought it feels weird to be in this position of "most experienced" when I only just started my job!). There is still so much to learn about this field, but I am excited to help my group members along in their journey to UX, as I was recently in their position.

Pursuing any of these ideas will benefit me personally -- working with others (interpersonal + communication skills), learning from their diverse backgrounds (growing laterally, one might say), learning about a new topic, and practicing my creative problem solving +presentation skills. I am accepting this new challenge and look forward to working with my group ((:

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Unit 2: What Does Creativity Mean to Me?

I have always wrestled with the idea that creativity is synonymous with "talented artist." I grew up writing short stories in elementary school and making videos with my friends in iMovie, but I gradually stopped exploring my creative side as I started comparing myself to others. I was always in that "valley of despair" and assumed I wasn't talented enough to be creative.

Switching to a so-called "creative field" was a difficult mental shift after many years in more analytical subjects. I started to shift my definition of a creative person to one who embraces uncertainty and pushes outside of their comfort zone. Creativity for me is about constantly pushing boundaries, whether it's learning/practicing a new design skill or taking a new approach to solve a math problem. Creativity is in everything we do, and I believe everyone has the capacity to be creative. Unfortunately I think we are taught to compartmentalize things in life, where we say phrases like "creative field" and "analytical field."

Lastly, (more of a side note) while creativity pushes me out of my comfort zone, it is also a source of relaxation at the same time. There is a specific moment of intense focus and bliss right after you free yourself from a "creative block." I always find it interesting how I turn to art to de-stress in one moment, and in the next moment the idea of creativity stresses me out.