Institution
Indiana University
Project
Conversational UI
My role & skills
Lead UX designer, team contributor
Prototyping
UX design
UI design
User testing
User research
Background
During the Coronavirus pandemic, Indiana University was rapidly moving into the changing demands that online-first education is a requirement. The team I was assigned to in response to this need quickly worked to help improve the online experience for current and prospective students, and one of our main goals was to help students find what they were looking for, with simplicity in mind, because in that complicated time, simplicity was essential.
Keeping the students engaged, while trying to navigate in an alternative form of learning, required extra attention to their experience. It was imperative to have communication with no interruption, help them find answers to frequently asked questions and guide them to the resources Indiana University had available.
My team was responsible for conceptualizing and building a conversational interface for Indiana University, responding to common questions and guiding users through IU’s most common processes.
We were to build a working prototype of an automated conversational UI
This tool would have a modular approach and be scalable
Modules would be developed as packages with logical capabilities or features
Initially, our focus was on the Coronavirus FAQs
This tool would be implemented in the IU mobile app and the gateway sites
Process
Since this project was to be developed quickly in response to the urgent needs of IU’s students during the pandemic, our project leader assigned specific roles to everyone that would be involved in the creation of this conversational UI. I was the lead designer and was responsible for research, strategy and see-through of design implementation from wireframes to a formal UI. I provided guidance to the UI designer for visual trends and best practices in conversational UI designs by supplying wireframes and outlines of our user needs.
I first began this process with extensive research on conversational UIs. This included reading case studies from other designers, reviewing accessibility reports from credible sources such as NNG and using existing conversational UIs on websites that already had them in use. From this research, I created two documents: one in-depth report with all of my findings and suggested path moving forward and one condensed document for upper level management to review “at a glance” and form a general understanding of our team’s goals and next steps.
Design
The design process began with a competitive analysis of existing conversational UIs. From here, I was able to form an understanding of the needs and best practices for Indiana University’s UI. I then created wireframes to hand-off to our UI designer and worked alongside them throughout their process. We performed some small group testing with prototypes of the conversational UI and were able to use that data to inform revisions in the UI before implementing the UI publicly.
I then began working with our team’s content writer to create a landing page where prospective users and other teams across the university could see what exactly we were building and have a platform to address any questions from those users.