UX Design
Operating with more control through thoughtful UX research
Enlighten Robotics
-
UX/UI Designer & Researcher
-
1 month
-
Figma, Miro, and G Suite
Overview
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for many years to come and will change how we live in the future. The idea of safety is now tied to the concept of cleanliness. Enlighten Robotics is intended to be the company that pioneers this new future—using UV-C light combined with robotics to disinfect public places—and was founded in April 2020 in direct response to COVID-19. Unfortunately, the relatively new technology has led them to use third-party platforms to supplement their solution.
Challenge
We found that users of the current third-party platform had severe issues that impacted their ability to do their jobs. The existing platform needed more functionality for the Enlighten Robotics customer base. The user could not easily maneuver between multiple robots during a single job and needed more relevant information, such as monitoring data for the robot and which locations were being disinfected.
Proposal
Our solution to this problem was to focus on three main points that most affect the user’s ability: straightforward and standard navigation, live wayfinding, monitoring information during the disinfection, and data visualization after the job to see its impact. This would support users and give them the tools they need to complete their jobs and for their supervisors to ensure a “safe” environment for people to return to work.
Current Platform Rundown
We spoke with users of the current platform to better understand where they were having the most issues and what they needed to complete disinfection with the robot. Our target user was the “Enlighten Operator,” whose goals/needs were to successfully and efficiently complete disinfections with the ability to use multiple robots and see their impact after the fact. The current platform does not address these needs and does not currently have a way for users to collect and review data.
Minimum information is given (no stats)
No details for errors or notifications
The Enlightened Operator
-
As an operator working at Enlighten Robotics, they are a superuser meaning that they have a the ability to access all information on the platform.
-
Complete the disinfecting process efficiently
Meet disinfecting schedule
Live progress, status, and notifications robots
Validating the process after completion
-
Missing functionality needed to control/monitor the robots successfully
Cannot easily switch between robots in the current platform
No visibility of status & alerts
The Enlighten Operator
-
As an operator working at Enlighten Robotics, they are a superuser meaning that they have a the ability to access all information on the platform.
-
Complete the disinfecting process efficiently
Meet disinfecting schedule
Live progress, status, and notifications robots
Validating the process after completion
-
Missing functionality needed to control/monitor the robots successfully
Cannot easily switch between robots in the current platform
No visibility of status & alerts
The Right Path [user flows]
After understanding who our conscious consumer was, the next step was to understand the user’s path through user flows. Narrowing it down to two main tasks that align with both CUESA and the conscious consumer’s needs. We used Whimsical to map out the users’ most natural path to accomplish these tasks.
Task one was to locate information about food waste. To be able to move from the home page to the article page related to food waste.
Task two was to locate information about farmer’s markets and how they have adapted during COVID. CUESA’s main focus is to educate and help communities grow through food. They hold farmer’s markets in three locations in the Bay Area.
-
Survey Says . . .
Taking our insights from round one of the usability tests and our secondary research of other nonprofit organizations, we compiled questions for a survey to better understand our users’ understanding of CUESA’s mission and their knowledge about food waste. This survey helped us understand who CUESA’s target users were, and using the data, we affinity-mapped the responses using Miro. This leads us to solidify our target user, the Conscious Consumer.
-
Reorganization & Restructuring
Finally, we tackled the site map and content structure/strategy of CUESA’s website. As mentioned, one of the main issues the user faced was not knowing where to go from the navigation and not having relevant information on the food waste-related pages. So, we restructured their navigation to bring attention to the sustainability section of the navigation and changed the order of the rest of the navigation. Then, we focused on what relevant information concerning food waste should be on the sustainability page concerning food waste. None of the content was discarded; instead, it was relocated as CUESA had fantastic content, but it was hidden because of poor navigation and content structure.
Brainstorming
-
log-in
-
dashboard home page
-
jobs page
Testing & Polishing our Design [usability test 2]
Putting all our ingredients together, we cooked up our redesigned prototype using Figma to work together collaboratively. Then, I tested the low-fidelity version with our group of testers from our first round of usability testing. We learned that the experience improved, but there were still places we could improve in terms of the page structure and how many ways they could reach the sustainability page's end goal. Moving relevant articles to the sustainability page helped users feel a sense of accomplishment that they were on the page they were looking for. Gathering our insights from our second round of testing led us to create our high-fidelity prototype, integrating what we learned from our users.
From our second round of usability testing, users found the redesign to be easier to look at and digest, unlike the current home page, where the page is very busy and hard to follow.
-
The navigation is now clear and visible. It follows website navigation conventions, and from our usability test, the users found it similar to the experience online.
Some users went straight to the carousel banner highlighting an article about food waste. This gave our users multiple paths to achieve their task of finding information about food waste.
-
Foodwise (formerly CUESA) already has so much fantastic content, but it is not being appropriately showcased.
Our users found that when they got to the sustainability page, they had a positive response, as there was a much more extensive selection of articles related to food waste and sustainability.
-
It was much easier for users to see how they got to this page
There is now a complete breadcrumb trail from the home page to the final article page about “12 Tips for Reducing Food Waste.”
The sidebar also highlights an art instillation about the impact everyday people have had in regards to food waste that will bolster the Conscious Consumer into taking action and changing their habits
In Conclusion
This was a conceptual project, but I would love to see how this redesign would impact Foodwise’s (formerly CUESA) users if implemented. Throughout this process, I learned a lot about the complexity involved with providing information to the public while being a nonprofit. Research and content strategy was critical in bringing this proposed redesign to life.
current home page (left) & proposed home page (right)
proposed home page
proposed sustainability page
proposed article page