Radio Central: Cloud-Based Radio Programmig Platform
Orchestrated user research to validate the usability of design changes and enhance the user experience.
Role
UX Researcher
Company
Motorola Solutions, Inc.
Duration
6 months
As per Motorola Solutions, Inc.'s policy, the names and designs of unpublished products cannot be featured in a personal portfolio. Therefore, the information I can share is limited.
I kindly ask for your understanding that only a portion of the research projects I contributed to at Motorola Solutions, Inc. can be showcased. I appreciate your understanding.
Project Overview
Product
Radio Central is a cutting-edge, cloud-based radio programming platform designed to help users reduce the time and resources required for radio management.
As per Motorola Solutions, Inc.'s policy, the names and designs of unpublished products cannot be featured in a personal portfolio. Therefore, the information I can share is limited.
I kindly ask for your understanding that only a portion of the research projects I contributed to at Motorola Solutions, Inc. can be showcased. I appreciate your understanding.
Project Overview
Product
Radio Central is a cutting-edge, cloud-based radio programming platform designed to help users reduce the time and resources required for radio management.
Problem
New features (the specific names cannot be mentioned until officially published) and design changes have been added to enhance the convenience of the radio update process. Therefore, usability tests were conducted to determine their validity and effectiveness.
Research Goals
Introduce new features and design changes to users.
Validate the usability of the enhancements and gain an understanding of user experiences.
Identify current or potential usability challenges and gather valuable design suggestions.
Analyze research results and present the insights to the cross-functional team to discuss design solutions for making Radio Central more user-centered.
My Roles
Planned and conducted moderated usability tests, user interviews, and unmoderated heuristic evaluations.
Gathered research results, including significant usability issues and suggestions, and performed qualitative data analysis.
Created research reports addressing key observations and delivered insights to the team through compelling presentations.
Research Details
Stage 1. Plan Research
Setting Research Goals: Our team outlined clear and comprehensive research objectives, including validating the design changes and new features.
Method Selection: Moderated usability tests, user interviews, and heuristic evaluations were chosen as our primary research methods.
Participant Recruitment: We recruited 12 participants from Radio Central's existing user base.
Tests & Interview Preparation: Based on the functionality of the current prototypes, I was responsible for creating informative slides and interview questions aligned with our research goals.
Stage 2. Conduct Research
Moderated Usability Tests & User Interviews: The team facilitated the prototypes, demonstrating to participants how design changes and new features were implemented in the task flows and encouraging them to provide feedback on usability.
Heuristic Evaluations: To assess the product's usability based on Nielsen's principles, experienced UX experts participated in unmoderated heuristic evaluations.
Stage 3. Analyze Data
Qualitative Data Analysis: Valuable insights were collected from the research sessions. I performed qualitative data analysis to examine and classify the findings into three distinct levels—High, Mid, and Low—based on the severity of their negative impact on usability.
Research Reports: Based on the data analysis, I created comprehensive 60-page research reports that highlight key usability issues and design suggestions derived from user research sessions.
Stage 4. Generate Insights
Facilitate Team Discussion: I delivered design insights to our cross-functional team to help them gain a thorough understanding of usability issues and design suggestions, promoting collaborative discussions for strategic and creative design solutions to enhance the user experience with Radio Central.
Key Observations
Absence of Necessary Information
⚠️ Issue: In Fleet Overview, users had difficulty fully understanding the flash code chart because it only provided overly simplistic information.
🛠️ Solution: Enhance the Fleet Overview chart by including comprehensive explanations of the flash code and highlighting critical features, such as encryption, so that users can easily access the information needed to understand each flash code.
Unintuitive Button Designs
⚠️ Issue: In the Device Status pie chart, there were legends that indicated the numerical values of each state. These legends were interactive, and when users clicked on them, they provided detailed information about each state. However, due to unintuitive button designs, users were not aware of their interactivity and did not utilize the feature.
🛠️ Solution: Add labels or arrow buttons next to each device's status value to help users intuitively understand that clicking on them will navigate to separate pages with details about each status.
The Need for a Master Template
⚠️ Issue: Each device required its own template. As a result, as the number of radios users owned increased, it became difficult for them to manage a large number of templates simultaneously.
🛠️ Solution: Create a master template where users can easily turn each feature on or off for each radio. This will optimize the template management process and reduce the number of templates, enhancing overall convenience.
Conclusion
Achievements
Through comprehensive UX research sessions, the new features and design changes were successfully validated, leading to an 80% reduction in task completion time. This improvement simplified management processes from 40 minutes to just 2 minutes, resulting in more efficient and user-friendly workflows. Additionally, our team identified new usability issues and gathered innovative design suggestions for the new features and design changes. Our team addressed these issues and developed actionable design solutions.
Research and Design Iteration
To enhance the user experience of Radio Central, the design team will implement the design solutions into the prototypes. Afterward, senior researchers and I will conduct further UX research sessions on the updated prototypes to assess user responses to the design changes and uncover new insights. Our team will iterate on this process to ensure that Radio Central remains user-centered.
Stage 1. Plan Research
Setting Research Goals: Our team outlined clear and comprehensive research objectives, including validating the design changes and new features.
Method Selection: Moderated usability tests, user interviews, and heuristic evaluations were chosen as our primary research methods.
Participant Recruitment: We recruited 12 participants from Radio Central's existing user base.
Tests & Interview Preparation: Based on the functionality of the current prototypes, I was responsible for creating informative slides and interview questions aligned with our research goals.
Stage 2. Conduct Research
Moderated Usability Tests & User Interviews: The team facilitated the prototypes, demonstrating to participants how design changes and new features were implemented in the task flows and encouraging them to provide feedback on usability.
Heuristic Evaluations: To assess the product's usability based on Nielsen's principles, experienced UX experts participated in unmoderated heuristic evaluations.
Stage 3. Analyze Data
Qualitative Data Analysis: Valuable insights were collected from the research sessions. I performed qualitative data analysis to examine and classify the findings into three distinct levels—High, Mid, and Low—based on the severity of their negative impact on usability.
Research Reports: Based on the data analysis, I created comprehensive 60-page research reports that highlight key usability issues and design suggestions derived from user research sessions.
Stage 4. Generate Insights
Facilitate Team Discussion: I delivered design insights to our cross-functional team to help them gain a thorough understanding of usability issues and design suggestions, promoting collaborative discussions for strategic and creative design solutions to enhance the user experience with Radio Central.
Key Observations
Absence of Necessary Information
⚠️ Issue: In Fleet Overview, users had difficulty fully understanding the flash code chart because it only provided overly simplistic information.
🛠️ Solution: Enhance the Fleet Overview chart by including comprehensive explanations of the flash code and highlighting critical features, such as encryption, so that users can easily access the information needed to understand each flash code.
Unintuitive Button Designs
⚠️ Issue: In the Device Status pie chart, there were legends that indicated the numerical values of each state. These legends were interactive, and when users clicked on them, they provided detailed information about each state. However, due to unintuitive button designs, users were not aware of their interactivity and did not utilize the feature.
🛠️ Solution: Add labels or arrow buttons next to each device's status value to help users intuitively understand that clicking on them will navigate to separate pages with details about each status.
The Need for a Master Template
⚠️ Issue: Each device required its own template. As a result, as the number of radios users owned increased, it became difficult for them to manage a large number of templates simultaneously.
🛠️ Solution: Create a master template where users can easily turn each feature on or off for each radio. This will optimize the template management process and reduce the number of templates, enhancing overall convenience.
Conclusion
Achievements
Through comprehensive UX research sessions, the new features and design changes were successfully validated, leading to an 80% reduction in task completion time. This improvement simplified management processes from 40 minutes to just 2 minutes, resulting in more efficient and user-friendly workflows. Additionally, our team identified new usability issues and gathered innovative design suggestions for the new features and design changes. Our team addressed these issues and developed actionable design solutions.
Research and Design Iteration
To enhance the user experience of Radio Central, the design team will implement the design solutions into the prototypes. Afterward, senior researchers and I will conduct further UX research sessions on the updated prototypes to assess user responses to the design changes and uncover new insights. Our team will iterate on this process to ensure that Radio Central remains user-centered.