CASE STUDIES
The two case studies provided here were created before the pandemic, when I was operating my consultancy, Stick Labs. My emphasis at the time was designing for all five senses to enhance user experiences. I pursued UX projects that allowed me to zero in on spatial computing (VR/AR), which led to my leading research on Wonderscope, a voice-driven augmented reality storytelling platform for children, and co-leading the development of the VR Media Experiments.
WONDERSCOPE
An award-winning iOS app for kids that uses augmented reality (AR) to transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary stories.
Date: March 2018
Location: Los Angeles and Brooklyn
My Role: Lead Design Researcher
Partners: WITHIN Unlimited LLC
Description: Wonderscope was WITHIN's first foray into augmented reality. The initial concept was to create an educational screen-based children's story experience– at a time when many parents were eager to reduce children’s screen time, not increase it. However, WITHIN had a hunch that AR was a unique proposition that could shift parents' attitudes and reinvigorate children’s interest in the magical world of classic storybook literature.
Challenge: To establish a definition of “healthy screen time” based on testimonials from kids and parents and then test that definition against the current features and functionality proposed in the prototype.
Outcome: In November of 2018, Wonderscope launched. WITHIN built upon our team’s insights to improve the app’s permissions and setup. They pivoted from a passive, yet formative, reading experience to a highly interactive play experience that encourages kids to engage with the world and explore stories from diverse angles.
Approach
WITHIN stakeholders were still getting comfortable with user research, an earlier, less successful attempt had fueled skepticism. Our team co-opted a legacy document called the "Mechanical Matrix," which outlined the apps tasks and functional requirements that stakeholders valued most. The UX lead and I used the "Matrix" to generate a shared vision for the new user research plan. The interviews, card sorts, and prototype tests would explore users' attitudes and behaviors that directly adhered to the "Matrix." A strategy that would help us evangelize findings and align developments with stakeholders.
During planning, I campaigned to carry out a portion of the interviews contextually. The thinking being, we would gain more compelling insights by observing families, especially kids, in their natural environments. It also allowed the exploration of AR's affordance - the ability to present digital information directly against the backdrop of real-world settings.
We conducted two cycles of observations; the first was the contextual interviews with six kids and their parents in their homes. The second was a controlled observation with 15 kids and their parents in a testing facility.
I planned the scope of the observations in coordination with the UX lead, who led the prototype builds, and a researcher who helped implement activities and coordinated the planning.
IDEATION
Similar to the research plan, we found themes and created insight statements based on the “Matrix”, adding more key functions that surfaced during the interviews. They were: getting the setup right to avoid a non-starter app, upping the complexity of puzzles to test, probing useful hints and handrails for early-readers who are having trouble in the experience, and testing voice as an engagement tool outside of reading.
“I like that it made her think as opposed to sitting there. Getting up and moving around, being more active, I know it’s not a lot of exercise, but it’s better than nothing.”
“ The AR part was a little bit lost on me when the characters just stood on the table or didn’t always feel like they needed to be in this space. Now, the sloth that parachuted into the room was something!”
INSIGHTS
Insights that defined the launch version of Wonderscope
IT’S A CONVERSATION
The app experience starts with the setup, and it should serve as the "howdy and nice to meet you,” immediately inviting the user into the conversation of the app's story world. Parents and kids became active listeners when presented with conversational instructions versus written directives.
IT’S A MAGIC LENS, NOT A FRAME
People are captivated by the wonder of the AR technology when it's able to break through the constraints of the device and seep into the spaces of the real world.
EVERY STEP COUNTS
Parents saw 'movement' as a standout feature, to them, it signaled that the experience was valuable, even 'educational.'
(VR) MEDIA EXPERIMENTS
(VR) MEDIA EXPERIMENTS
A design residency dedicated to unraveling the UX of narrative virtual reality experiences
Date: February 2016
Location: Brooklyn
My Role: Design Researcher, Co-Design Lead
Partners: The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, National Film Board of Canada
Background: Is VR a good storytelling medium? Before this project was a residency, it was a question that Karin Soukup, the project's co-designer, and I pursued as an independent project. We met at IDEO and share a passion for design thinking and digital storytelling.
Description: VR storytellers are charged with molding 'experience' itself into the story world, yet none of their storytelling tools had adequately equipped them. As we stumble our way into this new, mysterious medium, we ask "How do we tell a story for the audience when the audience is present within it?”
Challenge: To devise a series of prototype tests to help VR storytellers better understand the audience’s experience. Specifically, how audiences interpret the story world and their role within it.
Outcome: April 6, 2016, we published the Medium post: “The Storyteller’s Guide to Virtual Reality Audiences.” With 19K views the first 5-days, and 84K views and 15K readers to date, the guide articulates and promotes the best UX practices for narrative VR creators to use. The guide was later developed into a talk and workshop presented at universities and film festivals.
Special thanks to Karin Soukup, Co-Design Lead, and, the extended team: Tran Ha, Paisley Smith, Judeth Oden Choi, Alexandra Garcia, Amy Santamaria, and Joseph Lim.
Approach
Karin and I began our approach by deepening our understanding of embodied experiences and digital immersive virtual environments (IVEs). I led the expert interviews and secondary research. This research helped us better understand the significance of sensory stimuli and how it impacts the audience's ability to feel "present" within experiences. Most notably, how it affects the participant's suspension of disbelief, the acceptance of "I'm here," and the desire to act within IVEs.
To strengthen our understanding of the sensory triggers and coping mechanisms, Karin and I took part in sensory-rich analogous activities. We also co-hosted a strategy workshop, bringing together experts in participatory design fields like live-action game design, theater, and architecture. We conducted interviews with people who experienced highly stressful or cognitively taxing situations. I steered the recruiting of the interviewees, tracking down, among others - a fighter pilot, triage nurse, and kidnapping victim.
It was when we learned that the brain processes analog and digital sensory stimuli similarly that we landed on "experience prototyping" as a methodology to use during ideation. It appealed to us because it allowed us to work quickly, inexpensively, and on a more flexible timeline. We also liked that the prototypes developed could be replicated by VR content creators working on any size budget.
To anchor this testing, we teamed up with The National Film Board (NFB) of Canada and director Paisley Smith, using characters and scenes from her VR documentary, Taro's World.
The ten-week residency began as we headed into the ideation phase.
IDEATION
We began by creating frameworks that connected the discovery learnings to the script; we quickly moved from flat representations of journey flows to 3D models. I built the first model using my daughter’s toys. This model helped Karin and I better align on the action within the 360° space, while pushing us to quickly understand the plethora of choices the audience faced in 360° environments.
We mimicked the constraints of VR technology, restricting our participants' movements and interactions to match the affordances of Google Cardboard. We created "magic goggles" (made of plastic, paper, tape, and front-facing camera glasses) that limited the audience's peripheral view while simultaneously recording their head movements.
Magic Goggles
When participants wore the magic goggles, their head movements replicated those of someone in a mobile VR headset, compelling them to "stitch" the scenes of the 360° story-world together for themselves. The goggles not only helped us track eye movement, but the stitching action also placed constraints on the audience that directly mimicked those of the digital experience, aligning the analog testing scenario more closely with the digital experience.
IDEATION CONTINUED
Over the ten-week residency, we conducted three sets of experiments with over 40 participants
D&D Prototype (Test #1)
In the "D&D" prototype, we tested the camera position; a common practice was to place the camera in the center of the scene in a fixed position. We wondered how position impacted the audience’s emotional state, and if free to move where would they go?
I designed the "D&D" test, borrowing from Dungeons and Dragons. We acted as selective narrators — hiding or revealing real-time story information to emulate some of the constraints of VR. A blank figurine represented the audience.
Having a body means being somebody (part 1)
The viewer is placed at the front of a classroom scene to amplify the emotional distance from the main character. Being at the front prompted social anxiety associated with standing in front of a real classroom. The participants felt ill-at-ease; they asked, "Can students see me?" and "Can I stand in the back against the wall?"
Turducken (Test #2)
Our second test explored how audience position affected the interpretation of the story. We nicknamed this test the 'Turducken' because, after the fact, we decided it tried to track too many variables in one test. In this test, the audience was placed in three different positions in a classroom scene.
Having a body means being somebody (part 2)
While the goal of the scene was to observe the main character, without any prompting the respondents paid attention to the teacher. Based only on the environment and their position within it, participants took on the social script of "student."
360° Test (Test #3)
In the third experiment, participants watched a scene in the main character’s bedroom wearing headphones with the same 360° sound. The participants were divided into three groups, with three varying degrees of restriction on what they could see (90°, 180°, and 360°). The prototype explored the tension between two focal points and the audience's comprehension of story information.
360° is Less than 90°
Audiences with a 90° vision of the scene recall nearly every event in the story. For example, in the 90°scene, all of the participants in the debriefing referred to the character by name. In the 180° scene, the audience would often be given descriptors like “young man.” In the 360° view, they referred to him offhandedly as “the kid at the computer.”
Testimonials
“We're an innovative tech startup with a mission to create engaging and emotional story experiences for people, and working with Katy taught us how to be better. Every conversation with Katy was guided by her inspiration and backed up with all the data she's able to collect and synthesize. She brought a human, emotional perspective to very technical problems. Working with her enabled us to set up better processes on our end to develop more engaging and intuitive interactive stories, we're better for having worked with her."
— Samatha Storr, VP CONTENT, WITHIN
Conversations about the VR media experiment
“It’s a great example of how strong, radical collaboration can lead to valuable learning in a still-growing space.”
— Stanford d.school, WHITEBOARD
“This is a wonderful exploration and I wholly agree with your observations.”