Droney, a mobile app to connect the drone community
UX Research and Design Project
Story
Project Logistics
Team: Team of 5 Graduate Students guided by Prof. Michael McQuaid
My role: UX Researcher, Research paper author
Duration: Sept 2018 - Dec 2018
Submission: Submitted to CHI Student Design Competition 2019
Methodology
Stakeholders
Individual Drone Enthusiasts - What are the expectations of individual drone enthusiasts and how might they connect with the communities?
Community Members - How can the drone community members absorb new drone enthusiasts in the community seamlessly?
Synopsis
We designed a one-stop-shop solution for drone enthusiasts to connect with drone communities. We interviewed 10 participants and used mind-maps to solution a mobile app. Along with the mobile app design, we also delivered a research paper, poster, and video.
Problem
Data Collection
Learn from pilots
Got insights into drone flying experience
Engaged in activities
Visited a community drone racing event
Learn from drone experts
Got insights into drone certifications
Talked to anti-persona
Researchers for rules against flying drones
Joined communities
Joined Facebook groups and community channels
Secondary research
Read research papers, blogs and articles
Interview Details
We conducted 10 unstructured interviews. The interview questionnaire covered pilots' drone flying experience, special skills required, knowledge about rules and regulations to fly drones, user experience and impact of drones audience apart from the drone community.
Table 1: Interview details
Data Analysis
Mind-Maps
Major data themes were: (1) the problems faced by drone community members, (2) opportunities to fill gaps within a drone community, and (3) the needs of the individual drone enthusiasts.
Figure 1: Mind Map (Pain point, community experience and interaction with flying drones)
Key Data Insights [Sub-categories]
Drone Racer:
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Drone racers build their own drones to customize and get a better experience.
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Drone races require AR glasses follow the small and fast drones
Drone Photographer:
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Drone photographers prefer drones with a good quality camera model.
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They experience a learning curve to understand functionalities and operate modes.
Key Data Insights [Patterns]
The data analysis led to the data patterns which can be categorized as - the problems faced by drone community members, opportunities to fill gaps within a drone community, and needs of the individual drone enthusiasts.
Problems Faced by the Drone Community:
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There is a lack of a global discussion forum for drone queries
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Same questions come up time and again
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Mentors face a lack of a communication channel
Opportunities to fill gaps within a Drone Community:
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Drones are expensive
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Pilots are very careful about breaking or damaging their drones.
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Finding the replacement of broken drone parts becomes an issue.
Needs of the Individual Enthusiasts:
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People are unaware of the existence of drone communities
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People are bored of going through the FAA (Federal Aviation Association) regulations for flying drones
Solution Development
Information Architecture
Due to its stand-alone presence and push-notification abilities along with the ability to integrate a live map, we chose to design a mobile app solution. The information architecture of the app is shown below. We used UI design cards to select design patterns.
Figure 2: Information Architecture
Figure 3: UI Design Cards used
Prototype
We had 4 major app features. One, discussion feature which provides a platform for users to discuss their questions-answers. Two, maps, that can be used when flying a drone. Three, marketplace, a platform to buy and sell drone-related stuff. And four, resources, external links to important drone-information. The low-fi prototype information is provided below:
Discussion
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This feature is a dedicated question-answer based platform with search and tag features, similar to Reddit or Quora. The search will answer the question if the question is already present or suggest similar questions asked.
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A feature to upvote or downvote is also added.
Maps
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This feature will be used primarily when the drone enthusiast wants to fly the drone. Maps will indicate non-flying areas and recommendations of places to fly the drones. These recommendations will be added by the pilots themselves.
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Also, with the suggestion of one of the usability testing participants, there will be notifications for FAA regulations that need to be abided like the height to which the drone is flying or the location flying/non-flying zones.
Marketplace
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A marketplace to buy and sell drone parts as well as drones, similar to Letgo app. The marketplace will introduce a flow of drone parts and communication between the individuals in the drone community.
Resources
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Resources stores link to the authentic sources of FAA rules, tutorials related to drones, talking to an expert and, seeking and providing drone services.
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This provides an opportunity for drone enthusiasts to share their knowledge and services.
Homepage
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The home page provides links to all the features of the app as well as the profile page.
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The user can view or update their profile in the profile page tab which is accessible from the home page.
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We have added the functionality of conversational UI to the application, to make the app more accessible.
Medium Fidelity
We build a medium-fidelity prototype using Adobe XD. The usability testing was conducted on this prototype. It can be viewed below.
Usability Testing
We conducted 3 iterations of Usability testing with the Medium Fidelity prototype. Some of the Usability Testing results are as follows:
A gap in information portrayed
The label headers "flying zones" confused participants. We changed it to "recommended flying zones"
Hamburger VS Floating action button
None of the participants noticed or used the hamburger menu. We changed it to FAB, which was more intuitive.
Introduction of Home Screen
The assumption that users would use the app only when flying a drone was invalid, so we added a home-screen instead of app opening in the maps screen.
Deliverables
The project was submitted to the 2019 CHI Conference in the Student Design Competition. The deliverables included a paper, a poster and a video. All these deliverables are present below.
Paper
Poster
Video
Reflection
Avoid Assumptions
We built the app for pilots as stakeholders. Thus, initially, the app opened on the Maps screen, assuming the pilot is looking for a spot to fly. This, was clearly an assumption, as users' would also use the app for using other features. This design flaw was recognized during Usability Testing.
Playing with unstructured interviews
Unstructured questions resulted in vague and unrelated data collected from every participant which resulted in a rich cornucopia of individual data but which couldn't be generalized. This process taught me that going for the unstructured interviews requires the team to be trained.
Define a success matrix
The project had a deadline for completion, but no success matrix defined. This resulted in completing the project as much as we could until the deadline.