Debate Time : Enables team members to express ideas equally and make decision efficiently.
Duration
3 months (2021/10-2022/12)
My Role
UIUX Designer
Responsiblity
User Interview, Wireframe, Hi-Fi Prototype, User Testing
Project overview
The Debate Time feature enables a group to make decision efficiently in a short period of time.
This project started by an idea of solving college students’ teamwork problem. Due to that teamwork is a big issue while attending class and even into workplace, we created "Debate Time" to increase discussion efficiency and decrease emotional talks while arguing with team members. And I was the main designer working on this new feature with a student team of four from Big-data-management Department.
Problem
Students in the university often avoid to select a class that need to cooperate with others. One of the reason is that they had problem with discussing. However, most of their required course are needed to work in groups.
Solution
To improve teamwork efficiency and create a more positive atmosphere, we produced a LINE chatroom feature named "Debate Time", so that the discussion could be controlled and well-managed.
Design Process
Understanding User's Need
User Research
In the beginning, we invited 6 college students who had faced teamwork problems frequently to attend the interview. After interview students who had faced teamworking problem, we summarized their problems into three：
Problems often occur when...
1. One couldn’t accept others’ opinion.
2. Team members disappeared after grouping.
3. One or more members had strong opinion, then conflicts will often arise.
Persona
Define the Problem
At first, we tried to solve the problem of "Disappearing Team members", because most of the respondents had faced this problem. However, considering different expectation of class, we found this issue difficult to approach. Therefore, we soon turned to solve the problem that is emergent, but fewer respondents have faced this probelm, which is "When team members had strong opinion, conflicts often arise".
After defining the main problem, we came up with a HMW statement, and started to brainstorm any possibilty that can solve this problem.
How Might We
Provide a space where opinions
can be fully and equally expressed？
Transitioning Needs to Design Concept
In this session, we discussed about what is the real user need over and over again. transform the need into design concept.
User's Need
-
One always insist in that his/her idea is better than others'.（fairness）
-
I want to share my idea, but I often interfered by others...（independent time）
-
I know that one's option is better, but I don't want to disappoint my friend openly... （privacy of voting）
Design concept
-
Equal speaking time
-
No interference when speaking
-
Anonymous voting system
Prototype
After a few rounds of discussions, we delivered a basic concept of "Debate Time", and from then, I worked closely with my team members to create a paper prototype, so that we can test the feasibility of the idea.
What we learned from the MVP testing
After MVP testing, we confirmed that "Debate Time" is effective to make sure every speaker can share their idea equally. But, the effect of improving atmosphere is still questionable.
Learning Card
Next Iteration
Here are the Hi-Fi Prototype that we've iterated after testing and some following improvements:
01
Easy to get started while discussing
Since most student used LINE as their discussion platform, we chose to design "Debate Time" as a feature in LINE chatroom, so that whenever a group of people need to make decision, it is one of the way to open a talk.
02
Ensure everyone is heard during meeting.
When one of the member is speaking, the rest will be muted to ensure that one's idea can be fully expressed.
From the MVP Testing, we noticed that 30 seconds for speaking are not enough for explaining an idea completely. Therfore, we increased the speaking time from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.
03
Making decision without being influenced by others
After user testing, we discovered that when it comes to a binary decision, people will be easily affected by the relationship between him/her and the speaker. Even though they had different opinion, it is too hard to stand out and opposed to their friends or someone that has strong opinion.
Therefore, we create an anonymous system, which only shows the chosen side, but protects the name and the numbers of voters.
What we learned from the Hi-Fi Prototype testing
Learning Card
What I learned from this project
We could provide services not only for students, but also for the general public.
In the beginning of the project, we started with solving college student's problem. However, after user testing ,we discovered that "Debate Time" cannot only solve the problem in the university, but in any time that a group need to speak without intervention.
Semantics of words could give user an expectation before using your product.
The word "Discuss" and "Debate", although all started with D, are having totally different meaning. And this is problem that we did not think it as important in the first sight. However, during user testing, we found it important to name the product correctly, so that users can easily connect the product and its usage.
Testing, testing, and testing. Rapid usability testing is an great way to gather quick feedback.
During the iteration phase, we often discussed for a long period of time but couldn't have a clear vision of what we ought to do for the next step. However, everytime when we chose to do user testing, we would quickly understand what we needed to iterate next. Ultimately, we have done 1 MVP testing and 2 Hi-Fi prototype testing in this problem solving process, and I fount it useful to explore the answer from the users.