Externalizing Mental Frames

June 15, 2022
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UX Design

Challenge: How can we visualize and analyze perspectives?

Role: UX Researcher/ UX Designer/ Analyst.

Duration: 4 months (November 2020 - February 2021)

 

1/8. BACKGROUND

People have different behavioural and cognitive responses to reality based on their perspectives. On a behavioural dimension, this could explain the cause of anxiety among people with traumatic experiences. 

Google, Facebook and IBM among many competitive organization have one thing in common: human-centred innovation.  Perspectives significantly determine the effectiveness of a solution. 

This is because broader perspectives improve ideation and reveal a higher level of openness. Broader perspectives increase the material available for convergence for an individual while openness increases the chances of sense-making through collaboration and experiences. This provides a feedback loop into broadening perspectives. 

So, what if we have a way of digitally capturing and representing this? The goal of this project was to externalize these perspectives. 

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2/8. RESEARCH

Perspectives are very subjective and vary based on multiple factors such as education, family, culture, and many more. To identify the most appropriate data and interfaces to showcase perspectives, we picked two groups of users. 

  • Social Media users: They provided the most appropriate data model to develop and run a model that will output a visualization of users' perspectives. 
  • Design Thinking practitioners: They provided insights into the most appropriate interface to capture the user perspective that impacts innovation. 

Through consultation with experts, I identified the following stakeholders:

  • Product Manager
  • UX Researcher
  • UX Designer
  • Chief Innovation Officer
  • HR and Talent Manager

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3/8. INSIGHTS

Through interviews, four personas emerged, we identified key user stories for each stakeholder:

James the Product manager, wants to identify the features of a high yielding user gap so that he can optimize the innovation process of his product team. 

Njuguna the UX researcher, wants to synthesize user research more effectively to identify high-value insights. 

Awino the UX designer, wants an increased clarity of user research outcomes to prioritize the appropriate user needs. 

Cherono the Talent Acquisition manager, wants to identify high potential employees who think outside the box to increase the success rate of her recommendations. 

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Mental Models

There exists a mental model that allows users to share their perspectives based on their observation or captured thought. 

This is seen using hashtags on Twitter/Instagram or Linkedin posts. 

The hashtag as the operating mental model

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Among UX practitioners and problem-solvers using the sticky note and whiteboard is another strong mental model developed while ideating. 

💡Sticky notes are communication tools that effectively minimize group think. 
assorted-color sticky notes
Sticky notes as communication tools for brainstorming in a team

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4/8. CONCEPT

High-Level Conceptualization

Combining key concepts such as available mental models and the efficacy of tags in highlighting a perspective we developed a high-level feature concept map to identify the network of inter-related domains. 

This map allowed us to identify the right tool for Enabling Frames: an Empathy Map.

High-level conceptualization to identify the right tools

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The Tag

The hashtags are meant to externalize the mental framework (perspective) of the user. As a result, it should be:

  • Measurable
  • Finite
  • Interrelated

Task Flow

Competitive Analysis
Identifying strengths and gaps among competitors to identify opportunities

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User Journey

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5/8. DESIGN

User Interface

The team at Enabling Frames requires simplicity and ease-of-use. Abstracting complex analytics is a key priority in our design. To achieve this, we used sticky notes to visualize networked perspectives on the familiar Empathy Map layout. 

Floating Action Buttons minimized distraction while the user captured their observation in  the input tab. 

Landing Page to the web application

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Input window in the web application

Testing

We evaluated different experiences using A/B Testing and Contextual Inquiry over Zoom . This resulted to changes in the User Dashboard and Input Tab. 

A/B Testing resulting to improved user experience

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Behavioural Mapping (Rewards)

The data team at Enabling Frames requires large amounts of data to observe relationships between perspectives among different users. In order to achieve this, the number of steps to capture a perspective should be efficient. It is critical that the user enjoys achieving this goal.

I designed a simple reward mechanism based on participation rewards in learning where a student receives a gold star or recognition when they achieve a certain goal. 

The reward should be:

  • Tied to actions that are aligned with the OKRs. 
  • Short and timely. 
  • Novel through multiple combinations to reduce monotony. 
  • The emoji in the middle and the two text fields are changed with each action. Each action receives a randomized combination of emoji and texts. 
  • Tied to positive actions to avoid instant gratification. 
Affirmation after documenting an observation
Affirmation after updating a profile

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6/8. OUTCOME

Web App

Version 1 of the web app followed the below design guidelines and is under evaluation for the second sprint. 

Landing Page, User Profile and Dashboard in version 1

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Reward mechanisms in version 1

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Network Model of Perspectives using a Jupyter Notebook

It is critical for Enabling Frames to visualize and analyze the relationships between perspectives and innovation success. In order to do so, we developed a model using NetworkX ona Jupyter Notebook. 

The second iteration of the project will include outputs from the model in the form of coordinates. These coordinates will inform the position of sticky notes on the Empathy Map. 

The model trained on social media data

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7/8 LESSONS

  • Recruit a UX Designer and Researcher that can commit at least 30 minutes a week on a specific date and time. The consistency will minimize any gaps and lags in insights along each design sprint. 
  • Empathize with the higher level stakeholders that are also key decision-makers in innovation and product investment in order to develop an experience that will enable them to consume the output of the User Research. 
  • Clean the data of similar terms as this creates redundant connections and increases the complexity of the network. 
  • Allow each sprint to only run for 2 weeks. Failure to do so will increase the complexity of the design criteria and compound the design errors. 
  • It is possible to capture and externalize perspectives. It may not be exhaustive as the mind is complex by nature but it provides a higher resolution into perspectivism. 
  • Like outliers in society, perspectives follow the same trend with communities and isolated perspectives as seen in the network.

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8/8 WHAT NEXT?

  • Correct errors from the previous Design Sprint. 
  • Improve the data cleaning process. 
  • Recruit a UX Designer and Researcher to improve the current experience. 
  • Recruit a Talen Acquisition stakeholder to design a consumable service that enables them to achieve their goals. 
  • Learn more about the perspectivism domain. 

If you are interested to learn more about this project, follow this link for a live session to discuss and ideate. . 

Happy to share and learn. 

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