Voice Technology Design Research and Prototype

client: fortune 500 technology company | duration: 10 weeks

As a final capstone for my master’s program in design innovation, I worked directly with a Fortune 500 technology company to identify opportunities for the use of voice technology in their product. My team first went straight to the users to learn about their behaviors and needs. Our team conducted over 30 user interviews with a diverse set of people. We used a wide range of design research tactics including in-person interviews, card-sorts, and drawing exercises.

These user interviews, combined with market research, fueled our insight generation process. Our insights described patterns in our users’ desires and behaviors, resulting in an extremely powerful framework that allowed the business to understand user needs. This framework provided the foundation for the next step of the process, ideation.

Our team generated over 30 ideas for how voice technology may address user needs. To guide us through the prioritization process and filter down to the best ideas, we began defining criteria - the 3-5 things that the feature must do to meet user needs. After many (MANY) post-its, ranking and re-ranking, we landed on 3 key ideas that would eventually tie together into a single feature set concept. Next, we moved on to the best part: prototyping.

The most important part of prototyping is getting your ideas in front of real users early and often. First we conducted low-fidelity prototype testing (paper prototypes and Wizard of Oz). Based on initial feedback we were able to refine our ideas and develop a high-fidelity voice prototyping through the use of Amazon Polly and Adobe XD.

As a result of our prototyping efforts, we demonstrated that application of voice in one of their most popular products would not only delight users, but generate financial returns. This feature would potentially capture a younger, desirable user segment and increase conversion from free to paid subscription users.