# Approach  

## Define the guiding principles  

We kicked off the project by gathering stakeholders and working with them to define the product’s guiding principles. This exercise served to understand team members’ perspectives and drove consensus on high level design goals.  

## User research, personas, and user stories  

We then conducted interviews with FlashRay’s target users: enterprise storage administrators. FlashRay was a new system that had not yet been launched, so we focused on understanding where these users’ needs were not being met, especially with respect to evaluating and implementing new storage systems.  

While our team had the benefit of working with personas that we had helped NetApp develop in previous projects, we still needed to conduct user research to make sure these personas were still accurate and relevant. Based on this research, we updated the persona definitions that we would use to guide our design decisions.  

This combination of user research and persona development resulted in a list of prioritized use cases, presented in the form of user stories. These served as the basis for our designs as well as the usability testing we performed throughout the design process.  

## Conceptual design  

As we transitioned from research to design, our process involved understanding the basic functionality of FlashRay and what it was trying to accomplish. We spent a lot of time white-boarding our understanding of the system with both the NetApp and EchoUser teams, and came to establish three major components to the FlashRay system: an Installer, a Dashboard, a Manager, and a Framework to hold it all together.  

![FlashRay Designs](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/netapp-body1.jpg)  

## Wire-framing, iterative design, and user testing  

With the conceptual designs for the major FlashRay components fleshed out, we started to generate wireframes. We kicked off a process of regularly generating design drafts, reviewing them with the NetApp product team, and updating the designs based on feedback. With each iteration, we increased both the scope and depth of the designs. We also built interactive prototypes and conducted two rounds of usability tests to solicit user feedback.  

## Creating the visual design  

An overarching component of our design effort was to create a look and feel that reflected a specific product personality. NetApp knew they had a groundbreaking product and it was paramount that users would get that impression. In conjunction with the conceptual and wireframe design activities, we held an internal branding workshop to identify the product traits and personality that the NetApp team wanted from the FlashRay project, and subsequently created moodboards to reflect their vision and serve as a feedback mechanism. After defining an overall visual design direction, we crafted a style guide and library of assets to bring it to life.  

![FlashRay Designs](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/netapp-body2.jpg)  

![FlashRay Designs](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/netapp-body3.jpg)


A complex project that demanded a comprehensive, user-centered design approach to crafting the solution from the ground up. 


NetApp FlashRay Full-Service Research & Design

Entertainment

User Test a product early to rapidly validate ideas. Test later to establish benchmarks. Probe uncertainty throughout. 

For any development format: paper, wireframes, mockups, prototypes, and live products.

Usability Testing

Interviews are the baseline method for user research. Everything else is a proxy.

They provide deep insights on user behaviors, values, motivations, and desires.

User Interviews

Design reviews are expert and heuristic reviews to identify and prioritize design and usability issues. 

They can identify immediate fixes, define near-term goals, and outline larger projects.

Design Review

Interaction Design is designing how users users will interact with products, environments, systems, and services. 

It is architecting the flow of giving and receiving information in an experience.

Interaction Design

Full-Service

Full-Service Research & Design

NetApp was in the process of building a brand new flash storage solution called FlashRay. The team knew it represented a truly revolutionary leap in the enterprise storage space, and wanted to craft an administrator experience that would be modern, simple to use, and emphasize the game-changing performance of their new solution. EchoUser was put to the task, and defined the product in an end-to-end design engagement. 


Challenge

We ultimately delivered end-to-end specifications for the FlashRay administrator user experience, including an information architecture document, annotated wireframes detailing key elements and interactions, and a comprehensive visual style guide and asset library. 


Impact

NetApp FlashRay

# Approach 

Data without context is difficult to interpret, so we proposed the following: a multi-month user research activity focused on in-person ride-a-longs to collect human, personal sentiments regarding the transportation system and its use. 

We deployed our researchers to accompany BART riders on their daily commutes and ask targeted questions. While placing ourselves within the live environment of the rider, we were able to capture more honest and accurate responses from participants, and pick up on the sentiments that charged their answers. 

Dozens of user experience issues were identified and observed over the many ride-alongs. Riders’ top issues included cleanliness, safety, transferring, cost, and timeliness of trains. While riders care about the basics, time and money spent, they cared more about what contributed to the ride as a whole, or in other words, the trip experience. 

![BART train](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/bart-body1.jpg) 

Many BART cars are originals, dating from when system was first inducted in the 1960s.

![BART train interior](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/bart-body2.jpg) 

The interior hasn't changed much since. 

# Impact 

By the conclusion of our engagement, we discovered that BART and AC Transit riders are a tolerant, resilient bunch. Not only is BART experience more than riding the train itself, but a process that includes taking the BART, a bus, a taxi, and even walking to get from one destination to the next. 

While we uncovered pain points regarding the rider experience, the transit experience is encapsulated by the many facets of getting to and from any destination, including those outside of simply being on a train. We reported these quantitative and qualitative findings back to BART management to help them better understand and cater towards their dedicated riders.

Identifying pain points in the transit experience by riding alongside Bay Area passengers on their daily commutes. 


Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)

Any Experience

Contextual Inquiry is observing users in natural environments for overall insights on real product use. 

It helps identify challenges beyond hyper-focused design & development.

Contextual Inquiry

Transit Experience

BART and AC Transit had thousands of data points from their survey teams on the “rider experience.” However, they needed help extracting information from fields of data. EchoUser partnered with the BART to add a human perspective to the rider experience challenge. 


BART

## Context 

RoboSystems approached us to help build a social robot, a type of product that aligns with assistant-like home devices. You may have heard of other home robotic devices in this burgeoning field, such as Kuri and Jibo. 

RoboSystems wanted to take social robots to the next step by building something entirely new to consumer market — robotic pets. 

Our client highlighted a user group for an original concept: people who would like to own a pet, but due to certain circumstances (e.g. confined apartment space, work schedule, allergies) cannot own or care for a pet. Our partners at RoboSystems were committed to pursuing the “feel” of the product, emphasizing the need of the device to communicate emotionally with users, albeit in a non-traditional way — much like how a domesticated animal might with its owner. 

The concept of the robotic pet soon evolved into that of a social robot that can provide assistant functionality in line with those of Alexa and Google Home, but with a major focus on media and camera capabilities. Needless to say, we decided to jump straight into user research to see what pieces of this venture most resonated with target users. 

The original product concept began as a robotic “pet,” but user research soon evolved and matured our initial product concepts into a robotic assistant. We took these concepts and created high fidelity mockups to inspire and guide the product’s industrial design and development. 

![RoboCam concepts](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/robocam-body1.jpg) 

## Research 

In our research sprint, we had to determine several key factors: What value do real pets bring into people’s lives? Is the concept of a robotic pet concept appealing? Is this something people would want? 

We focused on understanding what value people place on their pets, and distilled it down from there. 

After conducting market research and user interviews, our findings revealed greater opportunities in the interactive assistant space. We pivoted from the idea of a roboticized version of a traditional, domestic pet to a vision that combines the concept of a companion with a media assistant, a robot that offers the same companionship as a pet, but with a heavier focus on social medial, camera technology, and other media functionalities. 

Other concepts that emerged included a robotic nurse, robotic butler, Star Wars-esque robot companion, organic characters. However, contemporary research demonstrates that most individuals are afraid of humanoid robots. 

The pivot emerged from user research after interviews validated the concept of a robotic assistant, with many audience members resonating with the idea of an Alexa-meets-media product. They expressed an interest and need for a product that can organize things, take information from the Internet, take pictures of them and their family, follow them around, and so on. 

From there, we conducted competitive research, reconciled our design options with industry standards and user needs & expectations, and then shifted into the design phase. 

## Design 

We ultimately decided to take an abstract design approach, molding the original, lively pet concept into something more docile, and comparable to a Roomba. However, our goal was to combine that abstraction with emotion, affection, and social interaction — veering back to the original functionalities of a pet. 

Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and renowned social sciences researcher, led studies on social interactions with technology with a focus on realism and how much of it is required for people to have a connection with robots. Her published research revealed that the key to connection lies in interaction — as soon as something is “living,” or moving around, an abstract form is more appealing due to the lowered user expectations. Instead of a human-like, animatronic robot, a successful product would be abstract and non-threatening. 

Both research and design standards support the idea of simple forms to lower expectations, and that it’s not necessary — or even a good thing — to design an interactive product exactly after the real-world character it’s trying to emulate. 

![RoboCam concepts](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/robocam-body2.jpg) 

Concept design of RoboCam 

Leveraging Turkle’s findings and existing robotic design standards, we added companion qualities and “personality;” for example, the appearance of going to sleep with battery decline. With our designs, the robot welcomes you home, has friendly interactions and reactions to users, and overall still has qualities that individuals love in their pets. 

![RoboCam concepts](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/robocam-body3.jpg) 

RoboCam emoji design 

Our interaction designs were driven by key values users have towards their real pets: physical engagement, communication, constant proximity, playfulness, understanding, welcoming & cheering up, family and security. We believe that these offerings of companionship, built into an abstract and approachable industrial design, will resonate with users as reminiscent of a pet, but manifested as a new and original product. 

![RoboCam room concept](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/robocam-body4.jpg)

Designing a robotic device that merges the concepts of a home assistant with a pet-like companion.


RoboCam: The Social Robot

Social Impact

Electronics

Industrial Design

Industrial Design & Robotics

Designing a robotic device that merges the concepts of a home assistant with a pet-like companion. 


We delivered interaction and industrial design concepts for RoboCam, showing the client how to embody what a social robot pet should look like, how it should behave and interact with users, and how users would realistically interact with them. 


RoboCam

# Approach  

The _EchoUser UX as a Service_ model allows us to be flexible, allocating time and resources to different areas of focus as priorities shift and opportunities for development arise. We began our engagement with a Discovery Month to immerse our team in the vision, product, and context necessary to distinguish the experience Gooru wanted to create. This helped us map out the ongoing UX work over the coming months and plan ahead.  

![Gooru Conceptual Model](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/gooru-body1.jpg)  

In early research stages, we facilitated a discovery workshop to determine what key emotional drivers — or “Guiding Principles” — lay behind all things Gooru. Identifying these key pieces would help anchor future designs to consistent holistic experiences. We conducted a short design sprint to further comprehend how the Gooru development process works and determine how best to incorporate a UX process.  

We identified key UX priorities with adjustable timelines over the subsequent months, but our UXaaS model allowed for ad hoc changes in UX support as needed. In one example, we had focused on designing features for the Back to School release in September 2014, which paved the way for more opportunities to interact with teachers and educators. We took the opportunity to conduct a Design Jam workshop with teachers, educators, Gooru team members, and EchoUser designers to brainstorm and design ideas for new features and concepts to further support students.  

![Sample Gooru design](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/gooru-body2.jpg)  

The full conceptualization of the product, supported by rounds of comprehensive research, revealed the need for an extensive redesign. Our team was faced with an overhaul of the entire experience, the first step being to deeply understand the current experience. This process kicked off with an “expert review” of the existing user interface, in which we evaluated aspects of the product that did and didn’t work. We conducted further research to understand the needs of both user groups, and developed personas to inform the design process.  

EchoUser created several low fidelity concepts for the new Gooru 3.0, and — with the help of the Gooru team — iterated upon the designs to reach a concept we felt would best support the users. Once a direction was established, the EchoUser team procured higher fidelity wireframes, and extensive user testing began to validate the refined concepts.  

# Impact  

EchoUser set the stage for Gooru to release a new version of their product each year. EchoUser continued after this foundational project on wire-framing, user testing, and additional visual design advancements.  

![Gooru design montage](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/gooru-body3.jpg)


Creating a space in which both teachers and students can seamlessly browse and share resources.


Gooru Education Experiences

Education

A conceptual model is a simplified representation of relationships & hierarchy for a product or service. 

It helps designers think of high level solutions and guide detailed design direction.

Conceptual Model

Wireframes are low resolution designs to give structure to concept models, but before visual design (e.g., mockups). 

They are used to first assess design concepts in more tangible product format.

Wire-framing

Education Experiences

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Gooru’s mission is to **honor and preserve the human right to education**. To achieve their goal of making educational tools more accessible, Gooru is building a free personalized learning solution that helps teachers find, remix, and share collections of web resources for any K-12 curriculum. The nonprofit had the knowledge, relationships, and experience to drive this endeavor, but sought a partner to focus on bringing top-notch user experiences to both students and teachers. Initially, EchoUser helped design pieces of the experience; eventually, the team decided to overhaul all of Gooru’s offerings from the ground up, with the challenge of making the experience resonate for two very different users: teachers and students. 


Gooru

![Rave](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/rave-body1.jpg)  

# Approach  

We kicked off the project by guiding our student mentees to conduct individual interviews in order to learn about the values, needs, and pain points of those who attend music events. We helped them prepare their discussion manuals and coached them on honing strategies for collecting high quality data.  

Once the students completed 15 interviews, we then facilitated a workshop to uncover meaning and patterns from the data they collected. After affinity diagramming their interview findings, we introduced them to methods for creating personas and journey maps.  

As we identified spectra that were represented across the interview participants, the students learned to tease apart behavioral differences and de-prioritize demographic differences. After the workshop, the students continued using the methodologies they learned to construct and digitize two personas and each of their journeys.  

![Persona](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/rave-body2.jpg)  

![Journey map](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/rave-body3.jpg)  

These artifacts were used throughout the second workshop, which focused on concept ideation and prototyping. Using a range of techniques, we led our mentees through multiple cycles of idea generation and convergence.  

After sketching out about 40 high-level concepts, they collectively chose the idea with the most potential to address the problem that they wished to resolve. From there, the students began prototyping their concept with various materials.  

![Project Poster](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/rave-body4.jpg)  

# Impact  

After several rounds of iteration, the students presented Trovi. It’s a wearable tracking device that guides you to find members of your group by using arrows as a navigational compass, blinking when you’re within 30 feet.  

It’s low tech and lightweight so users don’t have to worry about internet connection or having another bulky device to carry around. Trovi improves the music experience by enabling friends to separate and reconnect as they wish without the fear of getting lost.  

The students created a physical prototype that aligned with their designs and communicated their design solution through a storyboard and poster, and wrapped up the project with a presentation at the EchoUser office in San Francisco.  

We were excited and proud to see the students showcase their strengths in absorbing and executing a range of methods, creating a solution, and communicating both process and outcome.  

![Rave](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/rave-body5.jpg)


Collaboration with Berkeley Innovation undergraduate team to ideate, iterate, and prototype concept designs.


The Festival Experience

Personas are patterns of insights across user types based on real users.

They are a reference to help make design decisions and keep the user at the center of the design process.

Personas

Journey Maps are timeline visualizations of using a product to help broad understanding. 

They highlight issues & opportunities for key personas across different stages.

Journey Maps

Prototyping

Rave Experience

EchoUser partnered with Berkeley Innovation to mentor a group of five undergraduate students on a design project — from problem selection to prototyping. Our goals were to enhance their understanding of the design process, improve their research and design skills, and support them in producing a project for their portfolios.  

The students decided to explore the music festival experience and ultimately refined their scope to the problem of finding friends who get lost at these live events.


# Approach  

We conducted a 75-minute workshop with 17 seventh graders to introduce them to the nuts and bolts of user research and help them practice their new skills. The end goal was to prepare them for play testing with seven-year-olds to inform the next iteration of their game design.  

The students quickly absorbed the who, what, when, why, and how behind user research. It was clear they already had a baseline understanding of certain research fundamentals, like how and why to ask an open-ended question. Through a class brainstorming session, the students crafted some of the following research questions:  

- Is the game too easy or too difficult? 
- Are they having fun? 
- Is the game too complicated for a seven-year-old to understand?  

![Workshop](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/day-school-body1.jpg)  

After clarifying criteria for a successful game as well as defining what they wanted to learn through testing, they split up into groups to write their discussion guides. Then, each team conducted a pilot where they observed fellow students playing their games, asking them questions about their experience.  

In a quick debrief, students shared some of their observations and learnings from the pilot:  

- Some users left the game before the moderator had time to ask questions. 
- Some teams who made the prototype together had different interpretations of the rules.
- Some noticed students playing with their prototype in unintended ways. 
- Some prototypes didn’t function entirely as expected.  

![Workshop](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/day-school-body3.jpg)  

# Impact  

After the workshop concluded, students held these takeaways in mind as they continued working on their prototypes, discussion guides, and testing structure to address some of the challenges they experienced before meeting with the seven-year-olds. The following changes were made to the testing protocol:  

- Have three users at each game for five minutes 
- Spread the games around the room to prevent users from going back and forth 
- Create a fourth station to brainstorm additional game ideas so that students were engaged in an alternate activity while they weren’t testing a game. 

Jeri Countryman, Director of the Innovation Lab, commented:  

> “For me, one of the major takeaways for the students is knowing that the work they are doing is an authentic process. I also think that many of the students realized that the prototypes of their games can continue to be improved with user feedback… The session worked really well and the seventh graders all said they left with ideas on how to improve their games — and all the second graders said they want to make games!”  

EchoUser is excited to see how the students absorbed and executed user research methods and experienced the impact of user feedback. We hope that exposure to user research in middle school will support these students in appreciating the value of observation, empathy, and designing for others — not just themselves — in future projects and beyond.  


Teaching students how to prototype games and improve them by collecting and implementing user feedback.


Children's Day School

Interested in becoming a more user centered organization and want experts to get you started? EchoUser offers trainings to help teams and organizations learn about and infuse human centered design into their product or service organizations.


Training

Workshops are hands-on group sessions. They have many uses to spur design thinking and share knowledge.

Visioning, training, brainstorming, design sprints, project debriefs and more.

Workshops

Workshop

[Children’s Day School](https://www.cds-sf.org/) launched its Innovation Lab for middle schoolers to engage in collaborative, experiential learning and tinkering through an iterative design process. For one of their projects, students created games for younger students to play at an upcoming school-wide event. EchoUser partnered with CDS to help incorporate user research into their design process and, specifically, to prepare students to test their games with users. 


As a small startup ready for its second round of funding, Stitcher wasn’t a stranger to numbers and analytics data. However, the team was having trouble understanding what made someone switch from casual to habitual user, and why new user churn numbers seemed a little high. Stitcher enlisted EchoUser’s help to solve this challenge.  

# Approach  

Considering the two distinct user types we were given, we decided to take a multi-pronged approach. The first component was RITE (rapid iterative testing and evaluation) usability testing on the existing iOS application with both entirely new users and a handful of power users. This would highlight usability trends across the two groups to be tackled in the next design sprint, while the iterative nature of the testing would allow for design advances in between sessions.  

For the second component, we enlisted six new users in a diary study activity over the course of a month, with the intention of shedding light on why new users might or might not revisit and use the Stitcher app more consistently over time.  

![A-ha! moment](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/stitcher-body3.jpg)  

# Impact  

Catering to the needs of two distinct user groups can be tough, but over the four total weeks of testing as well as the diary study, a number of problem areas surfaced that applied to both groups. These issues aren’t unique to Stitcher, and can provide focus when designing for multiple user types, ranging from content discovery to multi-tasking, transit challenges and so on. Ultimately, the EchoUser team helped guide Stitcher to provide users with every possible chance to have their own personal “A-ha!” moment.  

![Stitcher Radio on phone](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/stitcher-body4.jpg) 


Iteratively mining for the”A-ha!” moment, the key point where a user goes from casual to habitual. 


Stitcher Radio Iterative Testing & Design

Mobile

Diary studies track users and product use over time. 

They provide a rich insights across a long timeline that otherwise are missed in short design cycles.

Diary Study

We gather stakeholders and users at one location over 3-5 days to collectively define problem areas and design objectives as well as brainstorm solutions , prototype and test low fidelity ideas.


Sprints

Rapid Iterative Test & Evaluation is a testing methodology and framework for iterating design through "rapid" test feedback. Can be implemented from user to user, test to test, or over longer periods tied to product releases. 

RITE - Rapid Iteration

Rapid Iterate Testing & Evaluation (RITE)

Stitcher’s challenge was to improve the overall first-time user experience (FTUX) of the Stitcher iOS application without alienating their existing user base. 


Stitcher Radio

# Approach  

EchoUser worked with the Varian team over the course of one year to develop, pilot, and implement an FDA-compliant, rigorous, repeatable process to measure, diagnose, classify, and report on the use safety and experience of its medical products. We wanted to test how well designed, productive, and safe interfaces were for conducting tasks. We used benchmark usability tests to determine the product’s level of usability and use safety.  

![Iterative user-centered design process](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/varian-body1.jpg)  

The device selected for the initial pilot was the TrueBeam radiotherapy machine which treats cancer by delivering powerful, targeted radiation to cancerous cells with pinpoint accuracy, directed by its complex imaging system. Our team was able to test the process from start to finish on a large, highly complex, safety-critical system encompassing both hardware and software, and both patient and operator considerations. Both current and potential users were tested with possible scenarios to gauge the users’ perceptions of the device’s current safety in the usability tests.  

# Outcome  

We categorized research measures across four basic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which we determined to be: Effectiveness, Use Safety, Efficiency, and Satisfaction. Using this testing methodology and measurement classification, the TrueBeam usability test identified areas needing improvement, as well as areas that performed beyond expectations.   

![Varian Truebeam Radiation Cancer Treatment Machine](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/varian-body2.jpg)


We defined and validated a rigorous and systematic testing methodology utilizing real technicians, which was key to finding and mitigating sources of human error. 


Varian TrueBeam: Defining FDA Human Factors Testing

Health

Human Factors

Defining FDA Human Factors Testing

Varian Medical Systems was facing new FDA requirements for safety and usability human factors testing for all medical devices and software. EchoUser was tasked to develop a new process for testing medical devices and piloted this process through usability tests on the new version of Varian’s TrueBeam radiation cancer treatment machine. 


The methodology that EchoUser developed became standardized for testing a wide range of medical devices and software across Varian. 


Varian Truebeam

The company already had clear marketing segments, but wanted to understand true user behavior when it came to home energy usage. They wanted EchoUser to help them create defendable, research-based personas that could be used for future feature development.  

![text](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/tendril-body1.jpg)  

# Approach  

We conducted over 20 remote and in-person interviews across the US to gain better insights into the behavior of people around energy efficiency. This involved visiting users in their homes to observe and interpret their energy-related habits. From this massive amount of qualitative and quantitative data, we created personas to represent archetype users in terms of attitudes, motivations, and behaviors concerning their energy usage.  

# Impact  

After conducting numerous interviews, we delivered our findings — particularly the spectra of behavior — in the form of personas. The personas we developed helped to ground internal and external design and business discussions, and ensured that decisions were based on real user stories, needs, and behaviors.  

![text](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/tendril-body2.jpg)  

![text](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/tendril-body3.jpg)


Conducting contextual interviews to create personas that help an energy company understand their users. 


Tendril User Research

Enterprise

Energy

User Research

Tendril is a cloud-based software platform that provides the infrastructure and analytics required to deliver personalized energy services. 


Tendril

![Castlight screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/castlight-body1.jpg)  

# Approach  

Since the design of the first-time UX (FTUX) could impact many parts of the site, we involved relevant stakeholders early in the process to utilize their feedback. We started with a design jam with the Castlight team, a brainstorming session for different specialists to share their perspectives, conceptualize possible solutions, and establish one promising direction for the designer to move forward with.  

After exploring and assessing the advantages and disadvantages of each FTUX model, we honed on an unobtrusive, flexible approach, which was intended to give users contextual instructions without getting in their way as they navigated the site. We then worked with developers to create an interactive prototype in the real-app environment.  

![Castlight screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/castlight-body2.jpg) 

# Impact  

The final usability test for the Rewards Program suggested that both “ease of understanding the concept” and “ease of taking actions” received positive response from users (5.67 and 6 respectively on a scale of 1-7; 1 being the hardest and 7 being the easiest). We then corrected further minor issues and worked with the developer to create production-ready specs and assets.  

Ongoing efforts will be to validate more concepts via A/B testing to enhance the users’ motivation of revisiting the Rewards Program. With regard towards first-time UX, we’ll also continue to validate the design through rounds of usability tests.  

![Castlight screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/castlight-body3.jpg)


Redesigning Castlight’s Employee Rewards Program for higher user engagement and increased user retention.


Castlight Health

User retention

Castlight is a healthcare portal that helps employees make better healthcare decisions, such as finding a healthcare provider. EchoUser was brought in to improve on various sections on the site to drive user engagement and retention.  

Rewards Program  

At the time, the Rewards Program lacked recurring feedback to keep users motivated enough to return and earn points. Additionally, there were usability issues that impeded the performance of the program, such as clarifying the concept of how the points are converted to HSA dollars.  

First-Time User Experience (FTUX)  

At first, site design that catered to first-time users was limited. Employees were led into a colossal system without clear instructions or context. As a result, the site experienced a high dropout rate from users who did not understand its value.


# Approach  

Based on Nordeus’ needs we suggested conducting a heuristic evaluation — a quick way to find usability issues of your UI in a short period of time by having usability experts review the product and compare it with a set of heuristic principles.  

![Nordeus Stage](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nordeus-body1.jpg)  

# Heuristic Review  

This method can provide some quick and relatively inexpensive feedback to designers anytime in the design process. While the concept of heuristic review has been around for almost 30 years, it has largely only been applied to software design. In our case, we applied the method to video games.  

Customization was involved to adapt standard heuristics to evaluate games. After investigating existing literature around the topic, we developed our own set of heuristics — similar to Nielsen’s, but with the consideration and inclusion of gaming elements.  

We wanted to look out specifically for areas where gaming elements are missing, or not appropriate. For example, does the game engage users by establishing a background story? Does it provide the right amount of guidance to allow players to level up, or is there too much hand-holding? Does the game feel repetitive after a while? What are the reasons/mechanics behind the repetitiveness?  

# Our Process  

In our heuristic review, six usability experts played the game for one to two hours, and individually took notes on usability and playability. We then consolidated feedback and attributed surfaced issues with severity rankings, as to let the Nordeus team get an idea of what issues they should prioritize in the upcoming Spellsouls redesign.  

![Nordeus Spellsouls Duel of Legends](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nordeus-body3.jpg) 


Customized heuristics and usability testing to enhance the gaming experience.


Nordeus: Gaming Heuristics and Usability

Gaming

Startups

Game Usability

[Nordeus](https://nordeus.com) is an award-winning independent mobile game developer, with 160 employees based in Belgrade and international offices in London and Dublin. Their mobile game, [Top Eleven](https://nordeus.com/games/top-eleven/), is the one of the most successful online sports games ever made, boasting over 140 million registered users.  

We teamed up with Nordeus to conduct heuristic reviews and user research on their new game, [Spellsouls](https://nordeus.com/games/spellsouls/), to discover opportunities for gameplay improvement. 


We concluded the project by delivering a comprehensive findings deck, a presentation that outlined our process, usability insights, issues we surfaced, how we prioritized them, and ultimately our recommendations for how the Nordeus team should continue with the design and development of Spellsouls. By applying a modified take on heuristic review to the gaming experience, we were able to dive deep into usability and retrieve qualitative insights that will guide not only future iterations of the Spellsouls mobile game, but inform the creation of new gameplays and stories for Nordeus’ future products.  


Nordeus

# Approach  

To identify problem spaces, we interviewed 15 people who shop and cook food regularly across age groups, household types, technology comforts and shopping habits. Surprisingly, regardless of people’s unique needs and situations, there were some common themes in wasting food at home.  

![Veggies](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/got-food-body1.jpg)  

For example, many people forget what they have in their fridges, pantries or garages. As a result, the food goes bad in the dark without anyone noticing. And for those who do remember there are expiring foods to be used, they often lack the time or inspiration to cook meals at home.  

Guided by our research findings, we defined a set of principles to inform our design decisions. To make people’s lives easier and ultimately, reduce food waste at home, we wanted our solution to fit different types of lifestyles, increase the visibility of the food at home, and inspire people to cook more.  

![Research findings](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/got-food-body2.jpg)  

# Impact  

A mobile solution “Got Food?” was created first as a way to address changing contexts. There are four components of the app:  

- Inventory shows people what they have at home 
- Shopping List lets people add shopping items and suggests what to get based on their inventory 
- Recipes encourages people to make the most use of their inventory 
- Analytics helps increase people’s awareness of their food consumption and waste.  

![Designs](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/got-food-body3.jpg)  

However, considering our defined principles, a mobile app shouldn’t be the only answer to the problems we were trying to solve. After all, the most intuitive way to check what you have in the fridge is to open the fridge.  

After several rounds of ideation, we made use of an everyday object, a fridge magnet, to surface food information, allow direct manipulation, and encourage collaboration among family members. It’s also perfect for the less tech-savvy.  

![Sketches](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/got-food-body4.jpg)


Engaging tangible and mobile experiences to design a smart food tracker, helping people reduce food waste.


Got Food?

Food

EchoUser Labs

**Home is a place where we are with our loved ones**, where we feel warm and secure. Among many different staple household activities, having food at home ties closely with these fundamental needs. This is why people love preparing and cooking food at home. However, many of us inevitably end up wasting the food we don’t use. Remember the last time you found spoiled fruit or vegetables in the back of your fridge that’s been there forever? Yeah, it happens to all of us. We may feel bad as we toss out the spoiled food, but it still happens over and over.  

To increase the user adoption of our proposed solutions, they need to be easy to use and fit different types of homes and lifestyles. After all, not many people want to transform their houses into a sci-fi movie set.

# Approach  

Our investigation of dual monitor usage was comprised of two studies. The first examined a cross-section of roles in common office tasks, such as document editing, emailing, and web browsing. The second study examined specific roles in more intense, domain-specific activities, like programming, technical writing, and project management. These tests were designed to procure an inclusive, insightful results from a diverse range of activities performed using two monitors.  

# Impact  

Overall, productivity benefits were generally found across conditions; however, the results and implications were far more intricate than was assumed based on previously published studies and industry articles.  

_First_, based on individual usability scales and questionnaire results, there was an overwhelming amount of evidence that users preferred two monitors to one.  

_Second_, workload results showed a clear pattern of improved information processing, as using two monitors allowed users to significantly increase the amount of information they could process over one monitor.  

_Lastly_, time savings, the main hypothesis, showed that complex tasks, whether generic office tasks or role-specific, showed large reductions in time when using two monitors. Simpler tasks, however, did not. Most importantly to Cisco, “core” roles like developers showed dramatic time-savings in their main tasks.  

![Dual monitor use](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/cisco-dual-body1.jpg)  

Ultimately, we discovered a clear advantage to using two monitors. Cursory calculations of savings were striking — conservative estimations of time-savings across the number of developers (approximately 10,000 at the time of the studies) and their time on certain tasks showed a possible real dollar savings of $56 million. Even for Cisco, that is a lot of savings.


Saving Cisco millions of dollars by proving that dual monitor usage is more efficient and cost-effective. 


Cisco Dual Monitor Productivity

Dual Monitors

Cisco saw the **potential to save millions** by increasing worker productivity by implementing one small change — but was the urban legend of dual monitor use true? Did two monitors really improve productivity, or did employees just want more stuff? Cisco approached EchoUser to help them quantify performance advantages of using two monitors instead of one, and whether this could lead to cost savings. 


Cisco

# Approach  

## Branding Workshops and Moodboard  

We initiated our redesign effort by digging deeply into Ultimate’s vision for their the new “look and feel.” We held multiple workshops with Ultimate’s stakeholders to collect their insight and input regarding the redesign, which enabled us to transform their feedback into a cohesive and prioritized set of design goals.  

To translate these design goals into visuals, we generated moodboards to articulate more general visual styles. This gave the stakeholders tangible artifacts that they could easily react to, further enabling us to refine the visual style and ensure that it encapsulated their vision.  

![moodboard](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/ultimate-body02.jpg)  

## Iterating and Refining the Designs: User Feedback  

Our next step was to create user interface elements that represented the vision we pieced together. We purposely created several alternatives so that Ultimate could react and provide feedback. As the designs evolved, we were able to whittle down the alternatives and decide upon a single direction.  

A key component of our approach was the incorporation of formal user evaluations to assess more qualitative goals of the design. We worked with Ultimate’s UX team to plan and run user feedback sessions on the visual concepts, the results of which were then used to refine the concepts into the final visual design.  

![welcome marsha](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/ultimate-body01.jpg)  

# Impact  

We successfully created a visual design for Ultimate Software’s UltiPro product that satisfied the guiding principles that we collaboratively defined: Clean, Simple, Friendly, Human, Engaging, and Brave. This is captured in a detailed user interface design specification that defines the UI to the level of component descriptions, object pixel dimensions, color codes and font styling.  

![welcome marsha](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/ultimate-body6.jpg)  

![welcome marsha](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/ultimate-body5.jpg)


Creating a visual style guide to differentiate Ultipro with a look and feel that is “bravely human.” 


Ultimate Software: Visual Design

Visual Design

Ultimate Software wanted a new look and feel for the next release of their UltiPro product, one that would differentiate them from their competitors and reflect their unique culture. Our first challenge was to understand what Ultimate really wanted: what did “differentiate” mean? Who were their competitors? What were the shortcomings of the existing product?  

The next challenge was to interpret their wants and needs into a visual design that would satisfy the adamant opinions of their wide variety of stakeholders. 


Ultimate Software

# Kickoff  

The lab kicked off by defining “diversity.” Is it a buzzword? Does it only apply to race or the ratio of men to women, or is it also embedded in age and socioeconomic status? Or does it encompass all of these facets and more?  

We centered our kickoff discussions on opening up the tech space to everyone and not just for a single subset of people — e.g. young, white males.  

Our participants shared and discussed three key motives for joining the workshop:  

1. To learn about design thinking and how it can be used to attack big, intangible problems, 
1. To take home at least one tactical strategy for making their business more diverse and inclusive, and 
1. To create and acquire a community of like-minded individuals who are struggling, yet impelled to grapple and combat the homogeneity of the workforce. 

As aptly put by one participant, 

> “My goal is to make the tech industry look like America.”  

![CO8_2](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/boulder-body1.jpg)  

# Defining a Goal  

After outlining a problem, we agreed upon a broad goal:  

> “To increase and retain presence of underrepresented groups in core technical, product, and leadership positions from the current baseline to reflect the general population of the United States by 2030 in order to outperform competition and make the world a better place.”  

From there, we deep dived into the questions we were most afraid of confronting, interviewed a panel of experts, and worked collectively to create storyboards of a brighter, more inclusive future for the tech industry.  

![CO7_2](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/boulder-body2.jpg)  

# Main Issues  

From participant interviews held prior to the workshop, we discovered three main areas of concern: recruiting, retention, and space.  

_Recruiting_. Where can we find diverse candidates? Knowing where to look and where to find candidates that don’t match your typical worker is an elusive but good place to start.  

_Retention_. After we get someone through the door, how do we make sure that our company was welcoming? Retention is key to maintaining a diverse workforce, and a good indicator of employee satisfaction.  

_Space_. How do we perpetuate a company space and culture that continuously involves a diverse workforce? For example, our group highlighted that there were a number of of industries that maintained a heavy drinking culture. Not only was the culture overtly masculine, but the focus on alcohol centered excluded recovering alcoholics and people who don’t drink.  

# Storyboarding and Expert Panel  

We broke into three teams to sketch and iterate on different potential solutions each of issue, choosing the best of each to populate a three-panel storyboard.  

During the halfway point, we introduced experts on these concerns in an expert Q&A panel facilitated by Madelyne from SHYFTco. Participants were able to ask “how might we” questions, draw insights, and elicit feedback that they implemented into their drafted solutions.  

By this time, we distilled our main goal into clear, actionable objectives for each team to respond to. For example, Space team’s goal was to “create guidelines, considerations and a “playbook” for designing inclusive space(s) for all employees to gather, whether physical or virtual.” 

# Presentations  

To communicate their solutions, each team sketched out their final solutions and presented their ideas through storyboards. At the conclusion of the workshop, everyone arrived at a single, collective solution that incorporated all the different ideas. These ideas helped paint larger picture that our HR and C-level participants took back to their companies to establish a stronger, more open workplace.  

# Impact

At the beginning of the lab, participants were eager to learn more and overcome some of the toughest barriers to a more inclusive workplace. After diving into the most critical problems blocking diversity from permeating the tech industry and presenting the solutions they crafted in response, we found that participants were even more eager — and now more prepared — to return to their companies with practical action plans in hand to bring the goals they envisioned to life, setting an example at home in Boulder for the rest of the tech industry to follow.  

EchoUser and SHYFTco partnered again at the Boulder Startup Week to discuss the outcomes Diversity Lab among the broader tech community, and how to promote inclusivity and create holistic diversity solutions through the medium of design thinking.  

![Flatirons](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/boulder-body5.jpg)


Bringing together the startup community to create an actionable game plan towards reaching a more inclusive, diverse workforce.


Boulder Diversity Lab

Diversity has long been recognized as a persistent shortcoming in one of the most rapidly growing industries of the past century. A diverse workforce is a critical driver behind creativity, empathy, and business success. Despite the ongoing discourse surrounding the topic, little has been done to outline pragmatic solutions to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace environment.  

We partnered with our friends at [SHYFTco](http://www.shyftco.com/) to present a day-long Diversity Lab, focusing on creating tangible diversity solutions to immediately implement following the conclusion of the workshop. We invited local tech companies to join the workshop with the goal of “hacking” diversity to establish a more inclusive industry, right here in our Boulder community.


We modeled our lab after Google’s week-long design sprint; however, it was a challenge to compress each phase of the process into an eight-hour experimental workshop. Participating startups included Sparkfun, Brandzooka, Turing Center, Full Contact, Techstars, Tendril, VictorOps, MojoTech and IMM, with participants ranging from C-suite executives and VPs to directors. 


Approach

# Approach  

Our primary goal was to assess the game’s first-time experience. We focused our assessment on studying the Badland’s appeal, leading us to analyze and evaluate what engages players and causes them to return to the game, pay money to continue playing, or conversely repel them from playing the game, at all.  

We conducted quick participant interviews to gain insight and contextualize their relationship with casual gaming, investigating broad topics such as what types of games they like to play as well as when and how often they take the time to play them. Next, we ran a usability test that began with the user discovering the game on the App Store. This allowed us to assess the participants’ experience regarding the game’s presentation and online description before downloading it. The test then proceeded with the user moving into actual gameplay, concluding with a retrospective evaluation of the gaming experience.  

![Badland screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/badland-body1.jpg)  

# Impact  

Through our research, we gained specific insights into the aspects of Badland’s gameplay that increased participant retention and the likelihood of users to play the game on a long-term basis — for example, beyond the first 5-15 minutes of initial play. These insights helped diagnose specific design improvements that would improve the first-time game experience for new users, and ensured the maintenance of the aspects of gameplay that already contribute to the participants’ positive experiences.  

At a higher level, this study represents the early steps into identifying the key factors that game designers should focus on to optimize the casual gamer’s experience. 


Diving into the world of mobile gaming to identify what about first-time UX makes gamers come back for more. 


Badland - Mobile Gaming Experience

Gaming Experience

Digital gaming is a massive space teeming with its own unique set of user experience challenges. The EchoUser team was specifically interested in the casual gaming experience and focused on assessing the first-time gameplay experience “stickiness” of the mobile phone and tablet game, Badland. Our objective was to discover what makes players stick to the game as time progresses, as well as to correlate user experiences to how successful the game is in the competitive gaming market. 


Badland - Mobile Game

# Approach  

Our biggest challenge was this: normal people don’t “speak API.” As such, the existing UI — essentially an API with a skin — needed to be redesigned and re-architected. User research activities and a comprehensive iterative design process led to a product designed to deliver powerful IaaS functionality in a user-friendly package.  

First, we conducted over 12 user interviews and workshops to delve into user behavior and identify key user flows. We then translated our findings into a new product experience. A home screen provided much-needed context to novice and expert users of the complex app. We also provided complex JSON files with a visual face to help more novice users manage intricate cloud operations.  

![Workshop](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nimbula-body2.jpg)  

# Impact  

At the end of the engagement, we delivered comprehensive research findings, as well as detailed wireframes and visual mockups that communicated how the redesigned product should look and function — and within a year, Nimbula was acquired by cloud computing giant Oracle.  

![Wireframe](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nimbula-body1.jpg)


We set out to create a user-friendly interface to deliver the powerful functionality of IaaS. 


Nimbula Cloud Services Research & Design

Cloud Services Research & Design

Prior to their acquisition by Oracle, Nimbula was an “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS) company that provided the tools for other companies to create and manage their own cloud services. They were faced with an intricate problem: how could they make their product intuitive enough for normal developers and cloud service end users without concealing its technical prowess? To solve this challenge, EchoUser conducted an end-to-end product redesign, from user research, to wireframes and testing, to pixel perfect mockups. 


Nimbula

> "The real value in working with EchoUser was the team transformation that they helped ignite, directing all of us on the path of UX maturity within the company" – *Design team member, Guidewire*.  

# Approach  

We kicked off this project with a presentation to 100 internal stakeholders from more than 20 product teams to introduce personas: What are they? When, why, and how do you use them? This was the first of many initiatives that aimed to both educate diverse stakeholders and build organization-wide engagement in the persona project.  

Given the high volume of personas to produce, limited user research resources, and comprehensive internal expert knowledge, we started by creating provisional personas across nine products by interviewing industry analysts, product managers, and other knowledgeable stakeholders. Recognizing that this expert-driven approach relies primarily on assumptions about users, we developed a strategy for Guidewire’s 12-person UX team to validate the personas with customers over time.  

Through our conversations with stakeholders we picked the highest priority personas and implemented two research studies to understand small business policyholders as well as personal lines (home & auto) policyholders. For each study, one in California and the other in Dublin, Ireland, we designed a highly collaborative approach that included a four-day analysis workshop with product teams and several show-and-tell sessions with key decision makers from product and marketing.  

![Workshop](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/guidewire-body1.jpg)  

By making the persona and journey map development process transparent and visible, we were able to accomplish the following goals:  

- Build empathy for users  
- Train the UX team in research methodologies 
- Demonstrate the value of UX 
- Gain organizational buy-in  

After creating the small business policyholder personas, we crafted and executed a strategy to familiarize cross-functional teams with the personas and teach them how to use them.  

We partnered with UX and Product Management teams to conduct four persona launch events in three countries, targeting an audience of engineers, quality assurance, UX designers, product managers, administrators, and industry analysts. For the 70-person launch in Foster City, we co-presented with the lead product manager to gain cross-functional buy-in and trained the UX team to moderate the break-out groups to build their skills and promote their role as UX leaders. All 20 personas were printed and displayed around Guidewire offices for teams to use in everyday conversations as they make decisions that impact users.  

![Designs](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/guidewire-body2.jpg)  

# Impact  

At the end of this 10-month project the UX team was more engaged, collaborative, and skillful at showing and promoting the value of UX across the broader organization. Achieving higher UX maturity has enabled Guidewire to better understand their users and design better products that target their needs.  

The UX team demonstrated growth by adopting new UX practices and leading research initiatives:  

- After moderating the persona launch workshop, many noted a renewed enthusiasm and engagement from working more collaboratively and trying out new methods. They continued the shift from individual to collaborative working styles afterwards, posting their work on the wall to enhance visibility. The team owned their role in promoting the voice of users. They commonly shared stories of helping to resolve design dilemmas by asking what would work best for the persona. 


- A few UX leaders emerged, taking action to spread of value of UX throughout the organization. They started presenting their work to broad, internal audiences and became more active contributors on product teams. Specifically, they started asking more questions, sharing their perspectives, and challenging teams to define the problem before coming up with solutions. 


- They demonstrated an improved understanding of fundamental research concepts by transforming unplanned user observations into intentional interactions. They started to define research goals, create moderator guides, synthesize findings, and share what they learned with others. UX designers put their persona and journey mapping skills to practice, initiating research studies and producing artifacts and insights to inform product decisions. 

C-level executives and cross-functional teams demonstrated support for persona adoption and promoted a user-centered design approach to product development:  

- One product team became aware of incorrect assumptions about users and redesigned their product to align with research findings. 

- Another product team decided to expand their product offering to target a different persona and address their unmet needs.

- One Product Manager showed a shift in her thinking about users as she acted out one of the personas that her product targets in a presentation to internal stakeholders.

- The UX team accessed funding to hire their first full-time user researcher. 

- The Chief Product Officer presented our persona and journey mapping work to internal stakeholders to set expectations for adoption, and to external prospects and customers (insurers) to illustrate Guidewire’s user-centered approach. Several customers reached out to learn more from the UX team, positioning them as educators and mentors on user experience within the insurance industry. Our flexible team was able to evolve the scope of the project to address Guidewire’s needs.  

We delivered high fidelity personas and journey maps, but more importantly, we increased UX visibility throughout the company, enabling the broader organization to understand and drive knowledge surrounding their user base and how their products are being used.  

We’re glad to have contributed to Guidewire’s changed perception of what UX can do and what a dedicated UX team is capable of.


Transforming corporate culture with UX awareness and training, teaching strategy and persona creation for ongoing design and new business endeavors.


Guidewire Insurance Software

Persona Development

Offering both enterprise and consumer-facing products, Guidewire delivers property and casualty insurance software to hundreds of user types around the world. The company had a principal goal of “defining and supporting specific user journeys”, yet they didn’t have a clear, shared understanding of the behaviors, motivations, and needs of their many different users. Guidewire approached EchoUser with a three-month engagement to create personas to deepen empathy for their diverse user base.   

As we developed personas, Guidewire decided to expand EchoUser’s involvement to support organizational adoption of the personas, which we achieved over the following 10 months. By the end of our engagement, EchoUser had not only provided key UX deliverables, but also enabled Guidewire’s UX team to conduct research, design assets, and achieve more visibility within the company.


Guidewire Software

# Approach  

The success of the platform is almost solely reliant on accuracy and evidence-based solutions, so it was crucial for us to develop a research plan that would allow us to hit all the right data points.  

AGU knew what they wanted to accomplish with GeoLEAD, but needed help with the minute details and execution of the project.  

![AGU](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/agu-body2.jpg)  

The initial framework of the study called for interviews of 20 recent graduates and 20 employers; however, we soon discovered that graduate participants were unable to provide adequate insights into the hiring and job searching process. Consequently, we recommended research efforts to continue with a stronger focus on employers, who had distinct preferences and insights to offer regarding the types of graduates they hire and what makes their candidacy stand out.  

Working in collaboration with project stakeholders, the EchoUser team developed a research strategy and tactical plan based on the direction provided by AGU, and crafted interviews that aligned with project goals. Over the span of three weeks, EchoUser conducted in-person and remote interviews with 21 employer participants and three graduate participants, and then parsed data for valuable insights that could inform the design and functional composition of GeoLEAD. Through these interviews, we were able to both quantify and qualify the most important traits to employers, which we compiled into an “ideal candidate persona” and presented to AGU along with the bulk of our findings at the conclusion of the study.  

![AGU](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/agu-body1.jpg)  

# Impact  

Our partners at AGU were pleased with our research findings to the extent that they called for a second round of research, in which we formatted and provided an alternate version of the findings presentation as a deliverable for AGU management to use and present internally.  

With these key insights, AGU will be able to speak to students from a position of expertise and credibility, and offer an evidence-backed resource to help students improve their candidacy for professional roles in the geosciences field.  

![Earthquakes map](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/agu-body3.jpg)


Understanding specific user needs and flows to establish a new career services platform.


GeoLEAD: Career Services for Geoscience Graduates

We help teams and organizations become more strategic in implementing UX process and set them up for success. We also help business come up with high level product strategy by identifying potential users, key use cases while considering business goals.


Strategic

Research & product strategy

The [American Geophysical Union (AGU)](https://sites.agu.org/) is working towards creating GeoLEAD, a web portal that offers professional guidance to students in the geosciences to help catalyze a smooth transition into the workforce.  

GeoLEAD would aim to provide students and recent graduates with career advice, effective job-seeking methods, and interview preparation all in one encompassing platform.  

AGU decided what they wanted to do, but didn’t know what traits employers valued most in recent graduates, or how recent graduates might increase their chances of getting hired in the geosciences field. After receiving a federal grant to pursue this initiative, AGU enlisted our team to conduct research with target students and employers alike to discover and investigate key commonalities, discrepancies, and turning-points in the hiring process, and to identify ideal candidate qualities across various sub-industries.


# Approach  

## User Interviews  

Through customer research and interviews, we discovered what users wanted in the app: control of lights and electronics on a room-by-room basis as well as a way to monitor energy usage. We identified key features, both from these interviews as well as an exercise with the client. In this unique case, the hardware informed some of the product’s more unique features, like dimming and turning on or off based on proximity. We collaborated with Zuli’s engineers, and worked to match technological capabilities with the needs of customers.  

Once these capabilities were determined, we began designing the app itself. Our team aimed for simplicity, but wanted to enable power-users to network several Zuli Smartplugs at once.  

![Zuli App](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/zuli-body1.jpg) 

## App Design and Information Architecture  

Using the results of the research phase, we devised an information architecture that mapped the application to a user’s understanding of the system. Sections included Setup, Energy Usage Tracking, Profiles, Home Screen, Device Settings, and Space Settings. Working with our developer counterparts at Zuli, we were able to bring a fully functioning app to life that encompassed the complexity of users’ needs while maintaining a simple interface and user flow.  

# Impact  

After several iterations, we finalized the designs for the Zuli app, a new multi-faceted product that would control the smartplugs, monitor energy, and allow a user to “set-it-and-forget-it.” One way that we provided Zuli with a different and fun user experience was by providing unique gestures. For example: From the home screen, a user can press and hold to open the dimmer (if applicable). The user can adjust the dimmer with a drag up/down motion, and quick swipe to the left to confirm.  

![Zuli App](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/zuli-body2.jpg)  

Designing an app simple enough for any user type while retaining enough capabilities to satisfy power-users. 


Zuli Smartplugs Design

Smartplugs Interaction Design

Zuli — formerly known as Brightblu — was an early stage startup in San Francisco. Their focus is to create a mobile solution to home automation by making it accessible to any smartphone user. Their product is a Smartplug that allows smartphone owners to control standard outlets through Bluetooth, enabling users to turn anything on and off from the touch of a screen. EchoUser was challenged with designing Zuli’s iOS app. We designed the app end-to-end, from user research to wireframes and testing, on to high fidelity mockups and prototypes. 


Zuli

# Approach  

To help Threadflip better understand their target users, we conducted interviews, online surveys, and field observations by attending and participating in actual clothes swapping events.  

We conducted six in-depth interviews and several more informal interviews drawing from several sources ranging from in-person clothing swap attendees to online clothing swappers and sellers.  

![Threadflip](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/threadflip-body3.jpg)  

We also circulated a web survey asking San Francisco women if they had clothes they didn’t wear and how they shopped for or swapped clothing. Nearly all of the 350+ respondents had bought clothes online, and 90% had swapped clothes with friends and family. We asked the respondents to describe an item of clothing they didn’t wear and analyzed their answers for common themes.  

Our research findings ultimately helped inform our conceptual designs for the Threadflip website.  

# Impact  

Through our research, we found that effectively translating the clothes shopping and swapping experience from the offline to the online world is the key to Threadflip’s success. In particular, our targeted methodologies helped them drive their new startup to perfectly understand that crucial user experience.  

![Threadflip](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/threadflip-body4.jpg)


With the help of our rapid-fire user research and visual design, Threadflip brings the unique, real-life shopping experience online. 


Threadflip Fashion Marketplace

Visual Design is applying the visual language that connects products to users. 

Rules & syntax, design systems, and overall look-and-feel amplify the interaction design into full product design.

Surveys

Fashion Marketplace

Prior to their acquisition by Le Tote, Threadflip was an online marketplace for people to easily swap clothes and accessories. When Threadflip was still a young startup, the company approached us with two UX challenges: find out how women swap clothes offline, then discover what women’s needs were when that experience is transformed into an online setting. 


Threadflip

# Approach  

The EchoUser team first delved into the current Pulse product, working closely with the Pulse team to understand key functionalities of the tool, as well as the company’s vision for Orchestrator. This enabled us to identify the most critical tasks the new tool needed to support: the creation and management of device configurations.  

![ui mockup](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/pulse-secure-body1.jpg)  

We also found that the creation of configurations in Pulse was one of the biggest sources of customer complaints. With this knowledge, we decided to focus our efforts on designing configuration functionality and the overall Orchestrator framework.  

# Impact  

We applied an iterative approach — procuring design concepts and reviewing them with the product team and in-the-field users if the Pulse tool, and then implementing changes based on feedback while continuously increasing the scope and fidelity of the design wireframes. To ensure that all progress aligned with the Pulse team’s vision and development objectives, we maintained a collaborative and communicative relationship throughout.


Narrowing the focus of the redesign project down to pain points for higher product impact. 


Pulse Secure: Orchestrator

Orchestrator

Pulse Secure had begun to lay out development plans for Orchestrator, a software solution derived from their current product. Instead of mimicking the design of the existing Pulse product, the Pulse Secure team wanted to rethink the UX of Orchestrator from the ground up in order to significantly improve the product’s usability. 


Pulse Secure

# Approach  

We began by conducting eight preliminary user interviews over two weeks to understand the needs of real NSF for Sport users and how they use the app to meet those needs. From these interviews we created three lightweight personas, and disproved some of our initial hypotheses concerning the needs of these users.  

For example, we assumed that athletes and dietitians would be interested in a new app function that would allow users to track the supplements they take over time. However, real athletes and dietitians we interviewed revealed that while they do track blood, urine, and overall routine, they weren’t interested in tracking supplement intake or logging detailed dietary information on an app.  

![NSF screen shots](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nsf-body3.jpg)  

# Workshop  

After a few weeks of interviews and concept designs, we had a day-long workshop with NSF at their headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We had the client team then make paper prototypes to ideate and test concepts on each other. Before jumping into the gritty details of a full-on design sprint, we were able to learn a lot from the paper prototyping exercise alone.  

The workshop allowed both teams discover what was possible to accomplish given technical limitations, and clarified to the EchoUser team what the NSF wanted out of their app redesign. The session also established ownership for NSF stakeholders over the final product designs that emerged from the workshop.  

# New Functions  

With the use cases identified in our preliminary research, we designed three critical functionalities to add to the next version of the NSF for Sport iOS app:  

**1st use case**: a user has a product in hand and wants to check if it’s certified by looking it up on the database.  

_New function_: we added a scan feature to allow users to scan the barcode of the product, and the app returns whether or not the product is NSF for Sport certified.  

![NSF screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nsf-body1.jpg)  

**2nd use case**: a user wants to type in the name of a product and view the results.  

_New function_: we added “Power Search,” a Spotify-esque functionality that suggests products and auto-populates the results section based on the words a user begins to type with relevant categories, brands, etc. For example, if a user types “Pro” to start looking up “Protein,” the app will assemble a variety of information related to protein (or the letters “P-R-O”) that might help the user.  

**3rd use case**: a user wants to search for a product based on its use and not its name, e.g., a certified product that serves as a sleep aid.  

_New function_: we assembled a “Browse” function to create a user flow for goal-oriented searching. With this new feature, users will be able to explore categories and subcategories for certified products that may fit their needs.  

![Color palette](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/nsf-body2.jpg)  

# Impact  

We worked with and around the technical limitations of the database. Since so much of the database was created and categorized manually, the EchoUser team consciously decided to design the ideal version of the app first, even though some components of our designs may not be implemented until v2, v3, and so on. This was to ensure that users get the features they need, even if they have to wait for a future release.  

One notable challenge we faced was NSF’s broad range of users. We aimed to be as respectful as possible of all different users, from professional athletes to high school moms buying supplements for their football player kids.  

Ultimately, we were able to simplify the NSF for Sport iOS app by enhancing existing user flows, while also introducing some new ones to ensure user satisfaction, and as part of our _EchoUser UX as a Service_ engagement with NSF, we continued to collaborate up until the product launched on the App Store.  


Overhauling an iOS app used by prominent sporting associations, doctors & dietitians, and amateur athletes.


NSF Certified for Sport

Sports

Mobile Database Redesign

[NSF International](https://www.nsf.org/) is an organization that specializes in product testing and certification. The nonprofit puts brands through rigorous certification testing protocols to ensure their compliance with the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) guidelines. NSF approached EchoUser to redesign their NSF Certified for Sport mobile app, which hosts a queryable database of certified brands so users can determine the safety products like dietary supplements, protein powders, vitamins, energy drinks, sleeping pills, and other performance enhancers.  

Initially, we discovered much room for improvement regarding the usability of the app. We noted several missing functionalities that would address two primary use cases, 1) users inputting incomplete queries to find a specific product they’re looking for, and 2) users browsing for something new based on a need they’d like to address.  

The NSF Certified for Sport database serves a variety of end users, from prominent national sports teams to dietitians, professional athletes to high school football players.  

Our task was to drastically redesign the iOS app, making the search function easier to use and more user-friendly while adding some key functionalities to improve the search process.


NSF International

![Linkagoal screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/linkagoal-body1.jpg)  

#Approach  

During the initial discovery month, we conducted a series of thorough interviews to collect insights from current and potential users. Afterward, we supplemented these observations by performing an expert analysis. Translating data into practical and apprised information, we then channeled our critical findings into our areas of focus: user experience, retention, and journeys.  

## Establishing a Framework  

Our team had compiled enough information and constructed a deep enough understanding of Linkagoal’s product, target users, and problem areas to blueprint the framework that would guide the overall redesign. Insights derived from the expert analysis and user interviews informed the creation of specific architectural site components, allowing us to piece the site together on a high level.  

## Redesigning Linkagoal  

During the course of the redesign, the primary framework gave us a foundation upon which to link core objects on the site that correspond to key elements of the user experience. With this high level overview, we began to work on goals, which are the user’s core site interaction, and progressed to other key areas — the dashboard, profile, and explore page — strengthening the flow and experiential relationship between each. These improved underlying structural elements would provide a cohesive base for the Linkagoal community to share and achieve.  

We began this phase of development with conceptual wireframes, collaborating frequently and consistently between the EchoUser team as well as the Linkagoal team. After rapidly iterating our designs into medium fidelity wireframes, we then proceeded to take a number of these designs into lightweight usability testing to enhance our mockups based on user findings.  

A few iterations and another round of user testing later, we were ready to progress into high fidelity wireframes.  

![Linkagoal screen shot](https://echouser.s3.amazonaws.com/images/cases/body/linkagoal-body2.jpg)


Redefining the experience of a unique social network made for creating, sharing, and achieving goals.


Linkagoal: Redesigning for a Digital Community

Social Networks

Redesigning for a Digital Community

Linkagoal is a social network where users can compose and share their personal goals while communally supporting other users to achieve their own. EchoUser was tasked with creating a more complete and engaging experience using the framework and principles of the existing product. Over the duration of seven total months, we worked with Linkagoal on a complete design overhaul for both mobile and desktop user experiences. 


Linkagoal

The tangible truth of your product experience. Translating user understanding into interaction and visual design. 

From _conceptual model_ setting foundation. To _wire-frames_, _mock-ups_, and beyond. 

A _user-centered design process_ allows us to apply ourselves to any design need and _Any Experience_.

Design

Motion design augments the visual and interaction design and gives more personality to your product. It directs users from one area to another intuitively, attracts attention and tells a story. If done right, it will engage your users from a deeper level.


Motion Design

In a world increasingly differentiated by experiences, we’ve crafted our full UX as a Service approach into a special condensed 6-week package for new experiences and technologies: 1) contextual inquiry, 2) personas & journey maps, and 3) conceptual design.