Qian - UX designer


Bring Bixby on the go. Your personal voice assistant



launched UK 2018



Creating end to end voice assistant experience for UK users on Samsung Mobile and other Samsung devices.





"Hi Bixby, how do I get to Waterloo underground station?"



Making it easier getting you to where it matters





"Hi Bixby, tune to Classic FM."



Suit your mood whenever you need it





"Hi Bixby, I want a flight ticket to Berlin for under £100."



Never miss a cheap flight, help you plan ahead





"Hi Bixby, are there any pop ups near me this weekend?"



Never miss a great time out





"Hi Bixby, when is the next train to Saint Albans?"



Relax, getting you on the train with minimal fuss





My role and responsibilities



Role



UX designer in team of 2 for the Uk product version and report to global design team



Responsibilities



Run Understanding Sessions

Define the third party's Service Value Proposition

Create Design Solutions

Create Prototype / Demo

Validate the product

Post launch improvement



TimeLine



Work in 2/3 weeks sprint cycle for product delivery. In general to deliver a client based Bixby service in 3/4 sprints.



The clients' services on Bixby I worked on and have launched:



“The world’s travel search engine”

Launched in 2002, Owned by Ctrip, the largest travel company in China,Support over 30 languages



Train companies work together to make it easy to travel by rail anywhere in Great Britain



Nightlife discovery service. Coverage across 15 cities in the UK. “Your ultimate guide to the best of the UK”



"Keep London Moving"

TfL run the day-to-day operation of the Capital's public transport network and manage London's main roads.



Global Player opens up a world of audio at your fingertips, allowing listeners to enjoy all of Global’s radio brands, award-winning podcasts, and expertly-curated playlists, all in one place.



Let's see how we designed the TfL experience for Bixby in this case study



Challenge



Problems and Client's goals



About TfL on Bixby



Bixby is Samsung's intelligence assistant, first introduced for Galaxy S8 and S8+. You can interact with Bixby using your voice, text, or taps. It's deeply integrated with the phone, which means that Bixby is able to carry out a lot of the tasks you do on your phone.

TfL run the day-to-day operation of the Capital's public transport network and manage London's main roads, with live data made available for third party to power their services.



The Problem



Voice assistance technology is still new and in the developing stage, the challenge is how we can build trust and provide a mature product to launch.

There are many journey planning Apps and services in the market that people are using already. such as City Mapper, Google Assistant etc. we need to bring the uniqueness to this category.

Using voice to communicate to your phone still appears unnatural to a lot of people, the problem is how we can encourage the users to use voice and feel more natural.



Goal



Fill in the gap of the existing services where we can bring our value and benefit to Londoners' day to day travel life. Provide the users with additional option when needed as well as delight by the new experience.



Discovery



Understanding | HMW | Story board |
Persona Creation | Scenarios | User Journey Map | Value Proposition



When will the user want to use voice rather than a traditional app?

Which parts of the service would benifit the most by using the voice?

How output can make an impact?

How can we engage the user to form a new habit?





Understanding



We run a series of sessions ( Lightning talk / HMW / Affinity Map ) joined by our BD manager, PM, DEV Leader, Language Experts, to deeply understand the business and our strength and to find where the opportunities lies.

Summary:

Jobs-to-be-done:

Functionally, I want to be quick, clear and straight forward when I am in a hurry and no time to type.

Emotionally, I want to feel natural and in control.

Personally, I want it to be helpful and delightful

Pains:

I fear when I am in a hurry and need the travel info direct and instantly.

I am frustrated to have too many info to look at when planning a journey.

I hate to have notifications that are not relevant.

Gains:

I want it to be seamless

I want it to be relevant

I want to be part of a new technical era.




Have you ever wished that you know what is the live status of your tube line when you need to be somewhere on time? Imagine if you can just simply ask your personal assistant-Bixby.



Bixby experience on TfL





Scenarios



I created two scenarios based on our persona Alice and Joe, to help narrow the focus and identify the key moments. Also to give a goal to draw user journey maps to locate the pain points and opportunities.



Scenario 1 : Find the quickest way to Point B





Alice’s friend invited her to try a new restaurant in town after work. Alice was a bit delayed at work, so when she rushed out, she asked Bixby the quickest public transport to get to the place, Bixby gave Alice the quickest route from her current location based on the current live traffic, and approximate arrival time. Alice then shared this information to her friend, so her friend would know when to expect her to arrive.



Scenario 2: Check Travel Status





Joe got invited for an important job interview yesterday. He wanted to make sure that he would be there on time. So he checked the route to see how to get there and which underground line he was going to take. While he was on his way to the underground station, he asked Bixby: "Is there any delay on the Northern line?" Bixby replied: Currently, there is a severe delay on the Northern line. Joe chose an alternatively route and felt lucky that he arrived on time and didn't get caught by the delay.



User Journey Map



Base on our primary persona Alice, we went through her journey to plan a travel route, in which we identified her pain points during the process so that we can improve by focusing on those pain points:

​



Worried about going to a place I have not been and having no control of the journey.

Concerned the location would not be recognized.

Anxious if I missed the transit point and any delay on the way.



Solution



Maximize the benefit of both voice and visual capacity on mobile, simplify the graphics on mobile to encourage users to use voice to complete urgent tasks, also focus on what use cases bring the most impact with voice.



Combine both voice and visual capacity on mobile, give the user both options of using voice or manually operate on the phone



Focus on simple but high frequent use cases when it can benefit the most by using the voice.



keep visual interface simple , clear with most relevant information that the user requests, so the user can get it with just a glance.



Design Process



Feature Prioritisation | Use Cases |
User Flow | Graphic interface |
Voice UI | Wireframe
| Validating | Prototype



Use cases



We then got together with TfL to have their input and to validate our Value Proposition.

With their approval we started to create the use cases around the goals: our use cases were structured with intent and representative utterances.





User flow



Based on the use cases we produced the wire frame with its core user flow




VUI (Voice User Interface) Flow



Create the VUI flow / Conversation flow to capture not only the main flow as well as all possibilities around the use cases such as if didn't catch what user said or a location is invalid, how would Bixby guide the user to complete the task.





Technical Review



A deep dive API checking from Dev team against the use cases and core flows, and give technical feedback on any technical limitations.

With Dev feedback we tighten the scope, removed goals like checking Travel Fare due to complication of different fare conditions, which created too much complex work for using voice. We also decided to move station facilities to future implementation.




Validation



Findings on UT testing:

Still too much info displayed on mobile screen that need a bit of time to read, not suitable for people who are in a hurry.

Wish to see other options but not too much content

Wish to emphasise duration so it can be seen by just a glance





Second Validation



For the second validation we used high fidelity prototype to gain the most realistic responses. We have also done a demo to TfL for their insights. We collected all the feedback / findings and made changes on:

Natural language - Added more natural language variations such as when users ask Central Line, they could say red line, or Victoria Line as blue line etc.

Graphic Interface - Made the layout more clear to the user, by providing 4 choices on the first screen, to give the user options, that includes Fastest, Best for Streaming (if people would like to use internet, provide routes like overground and buses), Most Active ( Align with TfL and London Mayor's vision of encouraging people to be more active such as Cycling) as well as Most Fresh Air (walking route).



"Hi Bixby, I want to go to Victoria Underground Station."



New First Screen



New Journey Detail Screen



Result



Have met our persona's goals and clients' goals



Changes made over the validation and refinement process:



Too much details on the first screen



Clean look with options but too simple can be confusing



Much more intuitive



Better recommendation format



Released Product



TfL on Bixby is aiming to maximize the benefit of both voice and visual capacity on mobile, All graphic interface was designed for providing additional help when the user uses voice to complete a task:

1, The user has the choice of what travel methods to pick from, with emphasis on duration, so they can feel in control of their journey.

2, Simple and clear graphic provides just enough info at a glance when the user is in a hurry,

3, Using voice to quickly check underground line status, so the user does not need to panic about the unexpected.

4, We focus on what the voice assistant can do, rather than competing with another mobile app, we want to fill in the gap that gives extra value and option to the user.



Post Release



After launch, we continue to track and improve the performance based on data analysis report and our QA team report, The work we have done so far:

Improving the Geo accuracy

Handled requests about outside London travel routes.



Next Steps



Add Search Station Facilities and Accessibilities Goal

Expand to watch

Keep stabilising and improving




Gallery of other Bixby Projects



Global Player



Design My Night



National Rail



Transport for London



Skyscanner



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