Zara Tewolde-Berhan
VR GAMING APP
Improving the social skills of autistic kids through an intuitive VR gaming app
THE BRIEF
THE PROBLEM
The VR gaming app aims to help improve the social skills of autistic children between the ages of 7 - 9. Our UX research phase was designed to define Autsera's target market, gaining deep insight into the users (children) and parents pain points and needs.
Prior to hiring gaming developers and gaining funds, the stakeholders wanted to clearly define and understand their target market and emphasise with their struggles before development.
The insights gained was to be shared with stakeholders and developers with recommendations.
Autistic children can at times struggle with social skills and feel a deep sense of frustration
The users are children between the ages of 7-9 who can often feel misunderstood, having difficulties with social skills. The parents are generally concerned with their child's social development skills in comparison to their peers.
THE SOLUTION
Our extensive research conducted, analysis, competitor review and usability testing allowed us to write a report with recommendations to the stakeholders.
Note: Due to an NDA signed the following work does not show full details
ROLE
UX Researcher
KEY GOAL
Defining Autsera's users, understanding their problems and needs and presenting recommendations to stakehoolders
TOOLS
Miro
Excel
Word
INTERVIEWS AND OBSERVATIONS
I joined Autsera's first observation session held at a school in Kingston, London. I held extensive interviews with parents, allowing me to gain greater empathy and understanding of their pain points and needs. I also closely observed the children's interactions with their peers, families and environment, contributing to my analysis.
QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS AND TRIANGULATION METHOD
Using affinity diagrams my team and I conducted qualitative analysis, designing cluster themes of our common observations. We also discussed our individual analysis of the children’s behaviours and their parents concerns and feedback.
My qualitative analysis conducted combined with my data analsysis of the stakeholders initial questionnaires, strengthened my understanding of the users and their problems. This analysis allowed me to clearly define Autsera’s users.
My colleague and I analysed our data collected from the interviews, observations and questionnaire responses; ranking the struggles of the users on a spectrum in the persona. This was delievered to the game developers and future product designers.
DISCOVERY
As I extensively analysed the data, I discovered the children’s difficulties with social interactions and their parents concerns with their child’s social skills in comparison to their siblings or peers was a common theme.
USER PERSONAS AND JOURNEY MAPS
The personas provided the stakeholders and developers extensive information on the users. It highlighted the children and parents struggles, concerns and motivations. This allowed me to understand the users problems and preferneces. I highlighted this analysis in a report for the stakeholders and developers.
Using Miro I designed user journey maps to present the users daily activities, thoughts and struggles. Through empathy and extensive analysis the maps were delievered to the stakeholders and product designers to gain a deeper understanding of the users.
Client?
Note: That's for me to know and for you not to find out!
Due to an NDA signed the following work does not show full details.
COMPETITOR REVIEW AND REPORT
As part of our competitor review we conducted usability testing on the gaming apps that are also helping children with autism develop their social development skills. We analysed the competitors usability, visibility, accessibility, feedback, consistency, aesthetic, speed and support throughout each stage of the user testing, starting from the onboarding.
Based on our competitor review findings we presented a detailed written report to the stakeholders. It also contained recommendations and solutions for the future product designers and developers.
RESULT
Once our project was finalised Autsera have since raised funds and are developing the VR gaming app. They have created a vision of an application and have seemed to use colours we had highlighted in our competitor review. The deliverables were shared with the product design team to assist with the development of the VR gaming app.
The founders were also pitching their product at large investor pitch events
THESE WERE SOME LESSONS LEARNT & POINTS I WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT
It takes two
Understanding and meeting the needs of parents was vital but meeting the childrens needs were just as important for the product to be truely successful.
If the childrens needs and painpoints were not addressed- improving their social skills- then the VR gaiming app would leave both the children and parents unsatisfied.
The parents need to ultimately be persuaded to buy the product and if it meets user needs, they will recommend it to other parents.
Note: Although the parents were important, the children can't be lost in the sauce!
More insights
By interviewing the parents and observing the children, I was able to gain more inisghts, of not just the childrens pain points but the parents concerns and goals. Understanding the parents daily struggles and concerns was vital as getting to the root of their fears allowed me to ideate and recommend solutions to ease their fears and improve the children's experience.
The extensive insight gained also allowed me to predict potential problems and suggest solutions in my recommendations to stakeholders.
Balance
Finding the right balance between our strategy as UX designers and the clients roadmap to achieve their goal to meet user needs and solve their problems
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"Knowing me, knowing you... ahaa"
Extensive competitior research into the market was essential to understanding the market. Why would parents buy this product over competitors? What makes competitors users choose their product?
These questions were vital to interrogate our clients competitve advantage.