Web AR App | B2C Concept | 2023

UX Design

UX Research

Product & UX Strategy

Concept Prototype

Context

On a previous contract, I worked with a company that was creating a weather data network. They were selling IoT weather stations to end-users, and they collecting weather data in exchange for crypto tokens.

One of the biggest pain points, for both the company and the team, was the proper station installation. This has a lot of requirements, and if it's not performed correctly it greatly reduces the data quality of the station's sensors

Role & Team

I created this prototype to test the idea with users. There was not team behind this.

Scope

Create an AR helper tool to make installing a station as easy as possible. Provide a tangible way to understand where the station should be installed.

Business Goals

Enable the users to understand how they should be installing their station & if they've already have it installed, how well the installation is
Reduce the amount of wrongfully installed stations

Key Outcomes

Significant improvement in installation requirements understanding *

Improved weather data collected *

Reduced support calls *

Updated Product Back-log *

Overview & Background

An (simplified) overview of the process we followed

Project Process Overview

This is a simplification of the process followed in this project. The actual process was a lot more iterative, with many back and forth as we gained new understanding and we received more insights and evidence.In this short selection of steps we wont see all the steps we followed

Overview of the company's business model

Business Model in a Nutshell

The company's business model was based on good quality weather data, provided from stations that were properly installed and maintained. This was critical to the success of the project, as it would otherwise make it impossible to close the loop and sell the weather data to third parties/clients.

Understand & Align

Contextual Inquiries & User Interviews

Impact

This clearly shown us that there are a lot of pain points for people joining the company's network. The instructions weren’t clear, and the steps that needed to happen on the app were not user-friendly, as they required a lot of buggy, and manual input from the users

In collaboration with the UXR Team we arranged some contextual inquiries observing users setting up the company's stations, claiming their devices on the app, and using it to make sense of the data.

These sessions showed us that there were a lot of parts of the onboarding experience that needed fixing as people were confused at times.

Also, setting up a station required a lot of steps users were not aware of, making it harder to properly setup one.

The app, on the other hand, required users to do a lot of manual steps that made the whole experience a bit frustrating at points.

Observing users while trying to assemble the station

Observing users while trying to install the station

Station Installation Images from the Community

Impact

This step helped us to understand and showcase the need for a way to improve user understanding of how the station should be installed. As well as one to help understand if and why a station that is already installed, has any issues

After viewing the installation images in the community portal, we worked with the meteorologists and UXR to identify and measure the extend and impact of the problem.

Extremely bad station installation images from the community

End-to-end customer journey mapping

End-to-End Journey Map & User Pain Points

User Pain Points

Proper station installation has a lot of parameters
Users didn't spent enough time reading the instructions
Improper installation causes reduction in weather data quality
Improper installation causes reduction in rewards
Some users live in places were there is no way to properly install a station. But they find out after they've bought the station. Causing frustration and product returns

Design, Test & Iterate

Station Installation Helper Demo

Use this to help you find the right spot for a proper installation. 
          Use this on your mobile device to view a weather station in augmented reality (AR). 
          
          Make sure that no obstacles are within the rings around the station, as these will interfere with station's sensors, thus collecting lower quality data.

Interactive XR tool

AR Prototype for Weather Station Installation

Scan QR with your phone to view AR

Web view explaining how to properly install a weather station

User Testing & Feedback

Impact

Users seem to get the idea of how they should use this tool. Also, it helped to understand some of the most important parameters for when installing a weather station

We did a short user testing to check for understandability and usability of the proposed tool. The results were encouraging, yet, this requires more testing and refinement, as it is an advanced concept and needs more tweaking before releasing.

Viewing the tool in action (usability testing)