A world without creativity is like a Harry Potter’s novel without magic. Having been involved in the field of design for over seven years, I frequently embark on a quest to discover new and innovative solutions to the unique challenges that come my way.
By day, I am a UX designer, while my evenings are devoted to my passion for painting. I am currently pursuing a Master's degree in Human Centered Design and Engineering at the esteemed University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to this, I hold a Bachelor's degree in Communication Design and a Master's degree in Visual Design.
Prior to joining the University of Washington, I served as an Interaction Designer with the UX Consulting Team at ValueLabs, and also worked as a Visual Designer with Dorling Kindersley books.
When I'm not engrossed in my work, I take pleasure in traveling, meeting new people, taking photographs, and indulging in my love for food. As a painter, you will often find me engrossed in my canvas, lost in the act of creation.
Background
This piece was designed as part of my MS HCDE 518 course User-Centered Design instructed by Prof. Daniella Kim.
The project is a showcase of my understanding of the design thinking process in a team setting. The solution was arrived at by undertaking the design thinking process deep-rooted in empathy. The theme this year was "Do No Harm".
Project Brief
Prompt
How can we bridge the cultural and generational gap between Chinese-American young adults and their immigrant parents ?
Solution
A smart product that nudges story sharing during meal time. It has a simple conversation-starter mechanism tied to past experiences and emotions.
Team
Adhiraj Gorule, Shirley Zhang
Vaishali Vashisht, Wenxin Wang
My Role
UX Generalist
My Contribution
Primary Research, Empathy Building, Ideation, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing.
Duration
9 weeks (Oct 03 - Dec 05)
Problem Space
Many second generation Asian-Americans face unique struggles when trying to communicate and maintain a healthy relationship with their parents.
These conflicts are linked to increased levels of anxiety and depression for both parents and children.
01
According to the 2020 Census, Asians are also the fastest growing population in the United States, with 57% being foreign born.
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The bicultural families face challenges in the parent-child relationship due to an acculturation gap.
Initial Design Question
How can we bridge the cultural and generational gap between Chinese-American young adults and their immigrant parents ?
Constraints and limitations also defined why we scoped down this particular design problem. The following constraints were considered while crafting our design question:
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Limited project timeline led us to cater to only a specific section within Asian-Americans.
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Accessibility to potential users (friends and batchmates)
Timelined Design Process
Research
Design
Showcase
Oct 24
Oct 31
Nov 07
Nov 28
Dec 05
Ideate
Brainstorm, Shortlist Ideas, Story Boarding
Empathize
Literature review, Market Research, Survey, Semi-structured Interview.
Define
Affinity Mapping, Scope Outlining, User Personas, Target Audience, Redefine problem statement
Implement
Wireframing, Sitemap, Information Architecture, Prototype
Iterate
Usability Studies, Feedback Implementation
Iterate
Usability Studies, Feedback Implementation
Empathize
Three different research methodologies were undertaken to understand the problem statement. We moved from broad observations to individual discussions to better understand the challenges faced by people.
Research Methodology #1: Surveys
SETTING
Our target audience are second generation Chinese-American children from the age group 18-25. We gathered 32 survey responses using Google Forms and we identified all the potential user groups through social media and personal networks. There are four main focuses: Language, communication, cultural value differences, and company & knowledge of parents’ life experiences.
Click here to view the survey.
OBSERVATIONS
01
Discussing a wider range of topics with parents show signs of a decrease in the frequency of conflicts
02
Knowing about parents’ life experiences can decrease the parent-child conflict frequency
03
Deeply comprehending and empathizing with parents’ cultural values promotes effective communications
04
Language barrier is not a critical cause of conflicts between Chinese Americans and their parents.
TAKEAWAYS
Less than half of the participants were able to effectively communicate with their parents. Very few understood their parents cultural values which led to conflicts.
Research Methodology #2: Literature Review & Competitive Product Survey
SETTING
We first used literature review to understand the problem space better. We wanted to understand what challenges are uniquely faced by Asian American families, what factors contribute to these challenges, and how people can address them. It should be noted that these papers are mostly focused on Chinese-American families with adolescent children. We also analyzed existing products in the market that cater to this problem.
OBSERVATIONS
Most existing products for this problem space were either board games or card games
01
The products became redundant when the members of the family were not staying together
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All the products were based on the idea of story sharing
TAKEAWAYS
While these products worked as great conversation starters between the family, seperate time needed to be allocated to play these games with the family, which may prove to be intrusive. We further validated this assumption through surveys and user interviews.
Research Methodology #3: Semi-structured Interviews
SETTING
Our target audience are second generation Chinese-American children from the age group 18-25. We used Google Forms for creating our survey and we identified all the potential user groups through social media and personal networks.
OBSERVATIONS
01
Discussing a wider range of topics with parents show signs of a decrease in the frequency of conflicts
Knowing about parents’ life experiences can decrease the parent-child conflict frequency
02
03
Deeply comprehending and empathizing with parents’ cultural values promotes effective communications
04
Language barrier is not a critical cause of conflicts between Chinese Americans and their parents.
Define
Three different research methodologies were undertaken to understand the problem statement. We moved from broad observations to individual discussions to better understand the challenges faced by people.
Affinity Mapping & Research Findings
We employed affinity mapping to find themes from the interview. Link to view the Board:
https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPIy8Nak=/?share_link_id=818612638711
01
Conversation Breadth
Children don't know what to talk about
with their parents during conversations
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Its difficult to share emotions with parents
Knowing about the parents values would help me understand their perspective
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02
Children would like to get to know their parents better; beyond being just mom and dad
03
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Families bond and feel closest while having meals together
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04
There's sometimes a language barrier
05
Parents should be more involved in their child's life but in an uncontrolled manner
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06
Most conversations between families happen over text rather than calls
Redefined Design Question
We started this project with a broad goal of improving relationships between Asian Americans and their parents. We refined our design question from “How can we improve communication between Asian Americans and their parents?” to :
How can we encourage 2nd gen Chinese American young adults and their parents to share emotions and feelings regarding their life experiences.
Specifically, this project’s scope evolved through the design process to focus on mitigating the impact of acculturation gap on parent-child relationship by leveraging story sharing.
User Personas
From the insights generate via research, interview, and surveys, we created three user personas.
Ideate
Everyone brainstormed and sketched at least 6 ideas. We then collectively fleshed out each idea, and choose top three based on originality, feasibility, and effectiveness.
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An intelligent photo album that facilitates life moments sharing
01
An intelligent photo album that facilitates sharing pictures and memories with family members. This intelligent photo album aims to encourage family members to share their life experiences and feelings with the help of pictures as visual aids. It collects and preserves memories for the family by recording the stories and emotions behind each picture.
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FEELINGS DISHES
An original product that nudges story sharing during meal time. This is a simple conversation starter mechanism tied to past experiences and emotions. During meal time, each member of the family will share a memory associated with their desired topic and emotion combination. It uses colors and shapes to represent emotions.
02
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03
A value-centered card game interlaced with personal stories. This game helps players discover value differences by having everyone state how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement. It borrows from existing games like ‘Middle Ground’ and ’Parents are Human’.
VALUES CARD GAME
Final Shortlisted Idea
We decided to further develop Idea 02 ‘Feeling dishes’ concept based on these 3 requirements:
01
Product should focus on life experiences, values, and emotion sharing
The product should make bonding feel very natural instead of like a task or making it awkward
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The product should be able to archive stories to act as a repository of memories
Storyboarding
After going through all the problems area and ideating on possible solutions, we listed down feature list and scenarios in which users will use our product. We used storyboarding as a medium to explore different scenarios and the user journey users will follow while interacting with the product. This helped us further on developing user flow for the product.
Implement
User Flow
The aim is to construct a content and navigation system in a way that makes easy for the user to adjust to the functionality of the product and find everything they need without many efforts. We worked in depth to understand how the navigation would be structured and to ensure content is in place where user would expect to find it.
Information Architecture of the Feelings Chopsticks App
We devised the following IA for the supporting app. We tried to keep minimum functions that are simple to understand and nudge the users to share, record, and archive stories.
Physical Prototype: Feelings Chopsticks
We devised the following IA for the supporting app. We tried to keep minimum functions that are simple to understand and nudge the users to share, record, and archive stories.
Concept Art
First Iteration
Second Iteration
Lo-Fi Prototype: Companion App
We created medium fidelity prototypes based on the previous works for our usability testings. The prototypes focused on the general user flow for several core features: auxiliary instruction manual, set-up for physical product and digital accounts, management of personal recordings, and interactions with other users.
Usability Testing & Iteration
SETTING: Post the V1 design, we conducted usability testing with 6 participants. Our learning objectives were:
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Do people feel optimistic about the solution and find it comfortable to share stories in such settings?
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Are users easily prompted by the given topics and emotions?
USABILITY FINDINGS :
Topics and emotions were scoped well. Most users shared a story in under 1 min.
01
Users felt optimistic their family would try this and stated it is a better alternative than other more intrusive board games
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Users had difficulty remembering the activity instructions. Additional guidelines and improvements to onboarding process was needed.
Interactions with the chopstick holder was most naturally done via the chopstick rather than fingers.
04
70% of the users couldn't locate the "My Recordings" option on the app. They instead naturally went to the "My Profile" page
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The comments section couldn't be located because it could only be viewed after scrolling. It needs to be transferred to the first fold.
Usability Updated Design
Easy Step-by-step Onboarding
The app provides a step-by-step onboarding to first time users so they can pair their chopsticks and join/create their family space as smoothly as possible.
Family Space Sharing Prompts
The app makes story sharing very easy and uses notifications to prompt users to record and upload even when they are living away from their family.
The feature to transcript, translate, and comment gives the product a personal touch.
Archiving & Personalization
The ability to archive dinner table stories as customized playlists and liked recordings allows the users to create a repository of memories.
The "My Profile" page allows users to edit and rename their stories thus making them very personalized.
Demo Video & Instruction Manual
For users to better understand the end-to-end experience, we made a demo ‘’Wizard of Oz” experience. The video shows how the smart chopstick will facilitate the activity, and how the activity connects to the companion app.
We also designed an instruction manual that would be included in the product packaging. Its purpose is to guide the user through the onboarding process of the app and "How to play" instructions.
Figma Prototype
After incorporating the feedback we iterated on our previous designs to create a Hi-Fi Prototype that can be viewed below.
Many ideas were shortlisted but couldn't make it to the final design due to the limited project timeline. Hence, we listed them as a part of the future development of the product
MEMOIRS
The story archiving feature can act as family memoir's that can be passed down through generations.
Future Scope
SCALABILITY
The future versions of the product can focus on different types of cutleries that cater to families from other cultures.
CUSTOMIZATION
The product can include video-virtual dinners and old family photos can be incorporated into the stories
Meet the team
Takeaways & Reflection
This was my first project since I began my MS HCDE at the University of Washington. I enjoyed working in a team with diverse backgrounds which complemented each others skill sets. My overall learning were:
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Every user is different and your design will be interpreted differently by all of them.
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Design is very subjective so seeking as many feedback ay early stage is beneficial to see the general reaction of users.
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We cannot design for every user or achieve all the design goals - scope is important!
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Breaking it down into achievable deadlines and keep iterating the designs as it grows is the best solution.