Noa
Project Overview
The Objective
We were given ten weeks to discover and research a problem in today's world that may be aided with the use of Artificial Intelligence and to create ready-to-implement prototypes.
Project Duration
10 Weeks
My Role
User Experience Design / User Interface Design
Team Members
Gaige Dickerson, Lydia Goshen, Darren Wells
What I used
Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Rhino 3D
The Problem
The smartphone is easily one of the greatest inventions of our generation. The notifications that come with them can be helpful, but when we receive too many of these notifications, people’s productivity and focus can be hindered by the notification overload.
The Solution
We created noa, which is an AI integrated phone case with a detachable screen that learns from the user over time in order to learn how the user interacts with notifications, reduce the mental strain notifications cause to users, and increasing the productivity of users.
Research
Target Audience
Tech-Reliant Generation aging from 18 - 30
Interviews
13 participants
Surveys
86 responses
Shadowings
2 participants over the course of a day
Usage Reports
5 participants
Insights
We affinitized what we got from our primary research, and we got it down to 6 insight points.
1. Importance
People Ranked Communication notifications as their most important notifications.
2. Detach
Physically detaching users from their phones prevent them from getting sucked in to their phones.
3. Mental Model
Users share a mental model of how and when to interact with notification.
4. Prioritized
Display notification based on what the user finds important.
5. Lazy
People want to change their notification settings, but are often too lazy to.
6. Missing Out
People fear missing out on notifications when not interacting with their phone.
Persona & User Journey Map
With the insights and pain points we gathered from our research, we came up with two personas.
Ideation
We started to brainstorm and think about our solution and how it would look like.
How Might We
...streamline what people see without missing what's important to them?
...maintain the user's sense of control?
...make engagement with notifications as positive as possible?
...decrease the loss of productivity due to notifications?
Concept
An AI integrated phone case with a detachable screen that learns from the user over time in order to learn how the user interacts with notifications.
Reduce the mental strain notification cause to users.
Attempt to increase the productivity of users.
Why The Case?
Portability: The device is conveniently attached to the user's phone for quick travel.
Detachability: Complete disengagement from the phone avoids all unnecessary distractions.
Concept Storyboard
Prototypes
With the ideas and the concept we had, we started to design them.
Blueprint
Task Analysis
Low Fidelity Wireframes For Second Screen
Low Fidelity Case Rendering
User Testing
Cognitive Walkthrough
- Is the notification prioritization viable?
- Do the responses fulfill the user's needs?
- Does the AI enforce an immediate reaction?
Think Aloud Method
Final Iteration
With all the insights we got from user testing, we developed our high fidelity prototype of Noa. Noa is a phone case with a detachable screen on the back of it. It uses artificial intelligence to increase the productivity of the users. There are three key functions that we wanted to focus on.
- Prioritize incoming notifications based on importance to the user.
- Assist the users through auto-scheduling, and quick replies.
- Detach people from their phones to prevent the users from falling into the vortex of notifications.
How does the AI work?
Simple AI Chart
Expanded AI
Final Prototypes of Detachable Screen
Final Case Renderings
What I Learned
Through this project, I learned not to settle with the idea that I already have. My teammates and I were working on another solution to the same problem which is the loss of productivity due to the notification overload, and the idea of Noa came to me when we didn't have much time left until the final presentation. It was a risk, but I didn't want to settle with the initial solution because I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied with the result.
We ended up giving ourselves more work with a shorter amount of time, but we are so proud of Noa and thank you for taking the time to look through our project!