CLIENT: URBACRAFT [2016]
Project Brief
User Research & Website Redesign
My Role
Project Manager
User Researcher
Usability Facilitator
Overview
Urbacraft (now rebranded as Makerbrane) is a start up toy company that is creating a new hackable construction system for designers and makers of all ages, think Lego + Minecraft. At the start of the project their current website was mainly used to sell an older version of the product, grab email sign ups, and showcase their product to new users.
Our Goal
• Research potential users to identify behavior patterns
• Redesign the website to be an interactive portal for deeper user engagement
• Design a site that fosters a diverse online and offline community around the product
• Make the website more user friendly towards kids but retain an appeal for adults to become “Craftmasters”
Research
User Interviews
• Interviewed 28 Users
21 Male, 7 Female
12 Adults, 16 Minors
• Conducted survey with over 50 responses to gain quantitative data on user habits
Contextual Inquiry
• Visited an NYC Lego Meetup group with long time lego builders to observe their interactions, habits and sharing preferences
• Visited a Lego store to observe customers and inquire with employees about purchasing and use habits
• Purchased construction toy sets and deconstructed their materials – marketing, packaging, and instruction contents
KEY INSIGHTS
Findings
• Many users, both children and adults did not use the instructions to their toys and instead would build free hand – learn by doing. When they did want to learn something complicated they preferred searching youtube.
Design Suggestions
• Static instructions are not as valuable to the user as much as video content. Perhaps provide images or video of possible combinations without the instructions.
• Inspire creativity instead of controlling execution.
• Majority of users stopped playing with construction toys around 8-9 years old. It was very rare to find users who played with them in their teenage years. Digital entertainment such as games and apps become much more prevalent.
• Without a gamification or a social component to the experience, construction toys will not appeal to a majority of teenagers.
• Allow users to integrate urbacraft into their social groups
• Even more hardcore users, ones at the lego Meet ups that built highly complicated designs, were not interested in sharing their creations online. 15% of our Interviewees had shared their creations online and only 21% were involved in creative communities
“If people want to see my designs, they’ll be at the meetups and workshops that I go to.” – Victor (LEGO Enthusiast, Part of Maker Community)
• The ability to post one’s designs for upvoting and sharing will not increase site activity in a significant manner.
• To get hardcore members try to build communities perhaps on contests and live meetups and learning experiences.
• Mixing constructions sets was not very popular but adding action figures was very popular among users
• Including toys that move and interact with the constructs in a way in which the user can identify with that figurine is key to the enjoyment of the experience
After our User research we developed User personas and scenarios to keep us focused on our design goals.
PRIMARY GOALS
After our research we found that the site needed to perform 3 essential functions:
LEARN
Urbacraft is a new company that is looking to grow into market area that Visitors first needed to understand –
What is Urbracraft? How does it work? Why it’s appealing in ways that are unique to the toy market.
DESIGN
A place where visitors could come for inspiration on what to build and also share their creations. Encouraging the community to interact with each other and gain mastery over the toy system.
SHOP
Quickly browse for toys that may appeal to the visitor for themselves as well as their family & friends.
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
Conducted multiple Card Sorts to develop a System Architecture that was logical and easy to navigate for Users.
TESTING & OUTCOMES
Initial User Experience
• Background Video was distracting
• Didn’t understand Terminology.
• What is a Craftmaster?
• What is a Recipe?
• What am I signing up for?
• What is this share button?
• Share what and why?
Areas For Improvement
Therefore in our redesign we tried to eliminate much of the confusion by introducing terminology with picture diagrams to explain how the Urbacraft system worked. We addressed what the difference was between the products and how Users could eventually become designers themselves.
User Testing our Clickable Prototype
CONCLUSION
After our team redesigned the website we saw a fundamental change in the way visitors understood the product. In our user tests our prototype scored higher in categories of interest and understanding than the original with both kids and makers. We were able to bring more clarity to new visitors on the mechanics of site and the vision of the product. We also provided valuable user research to enable Urbacraft to further develop their products toward their target audience, adding clarity to some of the assumptions made about both pro and youth user groups.
NEXT STEPS
Urbacraft has rebranded itself under the title Makerbrane and is currently in the process of fundraising to build its next product iteration. Due to the site’s original problems our team discovered in User testing Urbacraft/Makerbrane has replaced their site with a minimal information page, which you can view here.